第129章 M(16)
MONTEFIORE, Italian of the celebrated Milanese family of Montefiore, commissary in the Sixth of the line under the Empire; one of the finest fellows in the army; marquis, but unable under the laws of the kingdom of Italy to use his title. Thrown by his disposition into the "mould of the Rizzios," he barely escaped being assassinated in 1808 in the city of Tarragone by La Marana, who surprised him in company with her daughter, Juana-Pepita-Maria de Mancini, afterwards Francois Diard's wife. Later, Montefiore himself married a celebrated Englishwoman. In 1823 he was killed and plundered in a deserted alley in Bordeaux by Diard, who found him, after being away many years, in a gambling-house at a watering-place. [The Maranas.]
MONTES DE MONTEJANOS (Baron), a rich Brazilian of wild and primitive disposition; towards 1840, when very young, was one of the first lovers of Valerie Fortin, who became in turn Madame Marneffe and Madame Celestin Crevel. He saw her again at the Faubourg Saint-Germain and at the Place or Pate des Italiens, and had occasion for being envious of Hector Hulot, W. Steinbock and still others. He had revenge on his mistress by communicating to her a mysterious disease from which she died in the same manner as Celestin Crevel. [Cousin Betty.]
MONTPERSAN (Comte de), nephew of a canon of Saint-Denis, upon whom he called frequently; an aspiring rustic, grown sour on account of disappointment and deceit; married, and head of a family. At the beginning of the Restoration he owned the Chateau de Montpersan, eight leagues from Moulins in Allier, where he lived. In 1819 he received a call from a young stranger who came to inform him of the death of Madame de Montpersan's lover. [The Message.]
MONTPERSAN (Comtesse Juliette de), wife of the preceding, born about 1781, lived at Montpersan with her family, and while there learned from her lover's fellow-traveler of the former's death as a result of an overturned carriage. The countess rewarded the messenger of misfortune in a delicate manner. [The Message.]
MONTPERSAN (Mademoiselle de), daughter of the preceding couple, was but a child when the sorrowful news arrived which caused her mother to leave the table. The child, thinking only of the comical side of affairs, remarked upon her father's gluttony, suggesting that the countess' abrupt departure had allowed him to break the rules of diet imposed by her presence. [The Message.]
MONTRIVEAU (General Marquis de), father of Armand de Montriveau.
Although a knighted chevalier, he continued to hold fast to the exalted manners of Bourgogne, and scorned the opportunities which rank and wealth had offered in his birth. Being an encyclopaedist and "one of those already mentioned who served the Republic nobly," Montriveau was killed at Novi near Joubert's side. [The Thirteen.]
MONTRIVEAU (Comte de), paternal uncle of Armand de Montriveau.
Corpulent, and fond of oysters. Unlike his brother he emigrated, and in his exile met with a cordial reception by the Dulmen branch of the Rivaudoults of Arschoot, a family with which he had some relationship.
He died at St. Petersburg. [The Thirteen.]
MONTRIVEAU (General Marquis Armand de), nephew of the preceding and only son of General de Montriveau. As a penniless orphan he was entered by Bonaparte in the school of Chalons. He went into the artillery service, and took part in the last campaigns of the Empire, among others that in Russia. At the battle of Waterloo he received many serious wounds, being then a colonel in the Guard. Montriveau passed the first three years of the Restoration far away from Europe.
He wished to explore the upper sections of Egypt and Central Africa.
After being made a slave by savages he escaped from their hands by a bold ruse and returned to Paris, where he lived on rue de Seine near the Chamber of Peers. Despite his poverty and lack of ambition and influential friends, he was soon promoted to a general's position. His association with The Thirteen, a powerful and secret band of men, who counted among their members Ronquerolles, Marsay and Bourignard, probably brought him this unsolicited favor. This same freemasonry aided Montriveau in his desire to have revenge on Antoinette de Langeais for her delicate flirtation; also later, when still feeling for her the same passion, he seized her body from the Spanish Carmelites. About the same time the general met, at Madame de Beauseant's, Rastignac, just come to Paris, and told him about Anastasie de Restaud. Towards the end of 1821, the general met Mesdames d'Espard and de Bargeton, who were spending the evening at the Opera. Montriveau was the living picture of Kleber, and in a kind of tragic way became a widower by Antoinette de Langeais. Having become celebrated for a long journey fraught with adventures, he was the social lion at the time he ran across a companion of his Egyptian travels, Sixte du Chatelet. Before a select audience of artists and noblemen, gathered during the first years of the reign of Louis Philippe at the home of Mademoiselle des Touches, he told how he had unwittingly been responsible for the vengeance taken by the husband of a certain Rosina, during the time of the Imperial wars. Montriveau, now admitted to the peerage, was in command of a department. At this time, having become unfaithful to the memory of Antoinette de Langeais, he became enamored of Madame Rogron, born Bathilde de Chargeboeuf, who hoped soon to bring about their marriage. In 1839, in company with M. de Ronquerolles, he beame second to the Duc de Rhetore, elder brother of Louise de Chaulieu, in his duel with Dorlange-Sallenauve, brought about because of Marie Gaston. [The Thirteen. Father Goriot. Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. Another Study of Woman. Pierrette. The Member for Arcis.]