Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Part 1Cerfberr, Anatole
General
Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Part 1
Cerfberr, Anatole
Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850. Comédie humaine
GRASLIN (Pierre), born in 1775. An Auvergnat, compatriot and friend of
Sauviat, whose daughter Veronique he married in 1822. He began as a
bank-clerk with Grosstete & Perret, a first-class firm of the town. A
man of business and a hard worker he became successor to his
employers. His fortune, increased by lucky speculations with Brezac,
enabled him to buy one of the finest places in the chief city of
Haute-Vienne. But he was not able to win his wife's heart. His
physical unattractiveness, added to by his carelessness and grinding
avarice, were complicated by a domestic tyranny which soon showed
itself. Thus it was that he was only the legal father of a son named
Francis, but he was ignorant of this fact, for, in the capacity of
juror in the Court of Assizes dealing with the fate of Tascheron, the
real father of the child, he urged but in vain the acquittal of the
prisoner. Two years after the boy's birth and the execution of the
mother's lover, in April, 1831, Pierre Graslin died of weakness and
grief. The July Revolution suddenly breaking forth had shaken his
financial standing, which was regained only with an effort. It was at
the time when he had brought Montegnac from the Navarreins. [The
Country Parson.]
GRASLIN (Madame Pierre), wife of preceding; born Veronique Sauviat, at
Limoges in May, 1802; beautiful in spite of traces of small-pox; had
had the spoiled though simple childhood of an only daughter. When
twenty she married Pierre Graslin. Soon after marriage her ingenuous
nature, romantic and refined, suffered in secret from the harsh
tyranny of the man whose name she bore. Veronique, however, held aloof
from the gallants who frequented her salon, especially the Vicomte de
Granville. She had become the secret mistress of J.-F. Tascheron, a
porcelain worker. She was on the point of eloping with him when a
crime committed by him was discovered. Mme. Graslin suffered the most
poignant anguish, giving birth to the child of the condemned man at
the very moment when the father was led to execution. She inflicted
upon herself the bitterest flagellations. She could devote herself
more freely to penance after her husband's death, which occurred two
years later. She left Limoges for Montegnac, where she made herself
truly famous by charitable works on a huge scale. The sudden return of
the sister of her lover dealt her the final blow. Still she had energy
enough to bring about the union of Denise Tascheron and Gregoire
Gerard, gave her son into their keeping, left important bequests
destined to keep alive her memory, and died during the summer of 1844
after confessing in public in the presence of Bianchon, Dutheil,
Granville, Mme. Sauviat and Bonnet who were all seized with admiration
and tenderness for her. [The Country Parson.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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