Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — ZCerfberr, Anatole
General
Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z
Cerfberr, Anatole
Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850. Comédie humaine
BOURIGNARD (Gratien-Henri-Victor-Jean-Joseph), father of Mme. Jules
Desmarets. One of the "Thirteen" and the former chief of the Order of
the Devorants under the title of Ferragus XXIII. He had been a
laborer, but afterwards was a contractor of buildings. His daughter
was born to an abandoned woman. About 1807 he was sentenced to twenty
years of hard labor, but he managed to escape during a journey of the
chain-gang from Paris to Toulon, and he returned to Paris. In 1820 he
lived there under diverse names and disguises, lodging successively on
rue des Vieux Augustins (now rue d'Argout), corner of rue Soly (an
insignificant street which disappeared when the Hotel des Postes was
rebuilt); then at number seven rue Joquelet; finally at Mme. E.
Gruget's, number twelve rue des Enfants-Rouges (now part of the rue
des Archives running from rue Pastourelle to rue Portefoin), changing
lodgings at this time to evade the investigations of Auguste de
Maulincour. Stunned by the death of his daughter, whom he adored and
with whom he held secret interviews to prevent her becoming amenable
to the law, he passed his last days in an indifferent, almost idiotic
way, idly watching match games at bowling on the Place de
l'Observatoire; the ground between the Luxembourg and the Boulevard de
Montparnasse was the scene of these games. One of the assumed names of
Bourignard was the Comte de Funcal. In 1815, Bourignard, alias
Ferragus, assisted Henri de Marsay, another member of the "Thirteen,"
in his raid on Hotel San-Real, where dwelt Paquita Valdes. [The
Thirteen.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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