M. Héger, Miss Brontë's Brussels friend, by the showing of all evidence was essentially the original of her leading male characters.[46] M. Sue's _Miss Mary_ and its "Manuscript of Mdlle. Lagrange," which I present farther on, are sufficient testimony that M. Héger was the original of the inner Heathcliffe and Rochester, and Charlotte Brontë's other chief male characters. An inquiry, therefore, is at once required as to the significance of Mrs. Gaskell's statement that she suspected Charlotte Brontë drew from the sons of the Taylor family[47] "all that was of truth in the characters of the heroes of her first two works." That the Yorkshire element of her heroes was provided by a living model or models from one family, is proved by a consistency of the characterization in this regard. I find, truly enough, that male members of the Taylor family were indeed the originals to which she referred in the composition of a Yorkshire-Héger.[48] The Taylors, of the Red House, Gomersall, (obviously the Briarmains of the Yorkes), and of Hunsworth, were mill-owner friends, and Independents, with whom Charlotte Brontë visited. In _Shirley_ Miss Brontë ostensibly portrayed Mr. Taylor and his two daughters, her friends Mary and Martha, as Mr. Yorke and Rose and Jessie. Mary and Martha Taylor were at school with Charlotte at Roe Head, near Dewsbury and Huddersfield. They were also at Brussels with Charlotte, though not at the Hégers'. Martha was taken ill and died at Brussels; a touching reference to her death is made where she is portrayed as Jessie Yorke, in _Shirley_, Chapter XXIII. Mary Taylor (Rose Yorke) was in New Zealand when Charlotte Brontë died. Her fondness for travel is mentioned in the _Shirley_ chapter named. The male members of this family were thought by Currer Bell most characteristic Yorkshire folk, hence the name of Yorke. I mention Yorke Hunsden as one of the Yorkshire-Hégers of Miss Brontë's method of dual portraiture. I believe this important character in _The Professor_ will be found, like his fellows, to be entirely a Taylor-Héger. The name for Hunsden was apparently dictated by the Taylors' connection with Hunsworth, and it may be noted his Christian name of Yorke came to be later the surname of Mr. Taylor as portrayed in _Shirley_. But the Héger element was always superior to the Yorkshire element in Charlotte Brontë's heroes. The latter might provide useful and necessary external characteristics, but the "intensitives" were the lines she drew from her model, M. Héger. Of him as M. Pelet in _The Professor_, she writes:-- His face was pale, his cheeks were sunk, and his eyes hollow; his features ... had a French turn, ... the degree of harshness softened by ... a melancholy, almost suffering expression of countenance; his physiognomy was _fine et spirituelle_.