第27章 B(16)

BRAZIER (Flore). (See Bridau, Madame Philippe.)

BREAUTEY (Comtesse de), a venerable woman of Provins, who maintained the only aristocratic salon in that city, in 1827-1828. [Pierrette.]

BREBIAN (Alexandre de), member of the Angouleme aristocracy in 1821.

He frequented the Bargeton receptions. An artist like his friend Bartas, he also was daft over drawing and would ruin every album in the department with his grotesque productions. He posed as Mme. de Bartas' lover, since Bartas paid court to Mme. de Brebian. [Lost Illusions.]

BREBIAN (Charlotte de), wife of the preceding. Currently called "Lolotte." [Lost Illusions.]

BREINTMAYER, a banking house of Strasbourg, entrusted by Michu in 1803 with the transmission of funds to the De Simeuses, young officers of the army of Conde. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

BREZACS (The), Auvergnats, dealers in general merchandise and the furnishings of chateaux during the Revolution, the Empire and the Restoration. They had business dealings with Pierre Graslin, Jean-

Baptiste Sauviat and Martin Falleix. [The Country Parson. The Government Clerks.]

BRIDAU, father of Philippe and Joseph Bridau; one of the secretaries of Roland, Minister of the Interior in 1792, and the right arm of succeeding ministers. He was attached fanatically to Napoleon, who could appreciate him, and who made him chief of division in 1804. He died in 1808, at the moment when he had been promised the offices of director general and councillor of state with the title of comte. He first met Agathe Rouget, whom he made his wife, at the home of the grocer Descoings, the man whom he tried to save from the scaffold. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

BRIDAU (Agathe Rouget, Madame), wife of the preceding; born in 1773.

Legal daughter of Dr. Rouget of Issoudun, but possibly the natural daughter of Sub-delegate Lousteau. The doctor did not waste any affection upon her, and lost no time in sending her to Paris, where she was reared by her uncle, the grocer Descoings. She died at the close of 1828. Of her two sons, Philippe and Joseph, Mme. Bridau always preferred the elder, though he caused her nothing but grief. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

BRIDAU (Philippe), elder son of Bridau and Agathe Rouget. Born in 1796. Placed in the Saint-Cyr school in 1813, he remained but six months, leaving it to become under-lieutenant of the cavalry. On account of a skirmish of the advance guard he was made full lieutenant, during the French campaign, then captain after the battle of La Fere-Champenoise, where Napoleon made him artillery officer. He was decorated at Montereau. After witnessing the farewell at Fontainebleu, he came back to his mother in July, 1814, being then hardly nineteen. He did not wish to serve the Bourbons. In March, 1815, Philippe Bridau rejoined the Emperor at Lyons, accompanying him to the Tuileries. He was promised a captaincy in a squadron of dragoons of the Guard, and made officer of the Legion of Honor at Waterloo. Reduced to half-pay, during the Restoration, he nevertheless preserved his rank and officer's cross. He rejoined General Lallemand in Texas, returning from America in October, 1819, thoroughly degenerated. He ran an opposition newspaper in Paris in 1820-1821. He led a most dissolute life; was the lover of Mariette Godeschal; and attended all the parties of Tullia, Florentine, Florine, Coralie, Matifat and Camusot. Not content with using the income of his brother Joseph, he stole a coffer entrusted to him, and despoiled of her last savings Mme. Descoings, who died of grief. Involved in a military plot in 1822, he was sent to Issoudun, under the surveillance of the police. There he created a disturbance in the "bachelor's establishment" of his uncle, Jean-Jacques Rouget; killed in a duel Maxence Gilet, the lover of Flore Brazier; brought about the girl's marriage with his uncle; and married her himself when she became a widow in 1824. When Charles X. succeeded to the throne, Philippe Bridau re-entered the army as lieutenant-colonel of the Duc de Maufrigneuse's regiment. In 1827 he passed with this grade into a regiment of cavalry of the Royal Guard, and was made Comte de Brambourg from the name of an estate which he had purchased. He was promised further the office of commander in the Legion of Honor, as well as in the Order of Saint-Louis. After having consciously caused the death of his wife, Flore Brazier, he tried to marry Amelie de Soulanges, who belonged to a great family. But his manoeuvres were frustrated by Bixiou. The Revolution of 1830 resulted in the loss to Philippe Bridau of a portion of the fortune which he had obtained from his uncle by his marriage. Once more he entered military service, under the July Government, which made him a colonel. In 1839 he fell in an engagement with the Arabs in Africa. [A Bachelor's Establishment. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BRIDAU (Joseph), painter; younger brother of Philippe Bridau; born in 1799. He studied with Gros, and made his first exhibit at the Salon of 1823. He received great stimulus from his fellow-members of the "Cenacle," in rue Quatre-Vents, also from his master, from Gerard and from Mlle. des Touches. Moreover he was a hard-worker and an artist of genius. He was decorated in 1827, and about 1839, through the interest of the Comte de Serizy, for whose home he had formerly done some work, he married the only daughter of a retired farmer, now a millionaire.

On the death of his brother Philippe, he inherited his house in rue de Berlin, his estate of Brambourg, and his title of comte. [A Bachelor's Establishment. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. A Start in Life.]