第124章 M(11)

Shortly before the return of the Bourbons, he was appointed lieutenant-colonel, and became commander of the Legion of Honor. Under the Restoration Charles Mignon de la Bastie lived at Havre with his wife, and acquired forthwith, by means of banking, a large fortune, which he shortly lost. After absenting himself from the country, he returned, during the last year of Charles X.'s reign, from the Orient, having become a multi-millionaire. Of his four children, he lost three, two having died in early childhood, while Bettina Caroline, the third, died in 1827, after being misled and finally deserted by M. d'Estourny. Marie-Modeste was the only child remaining, and she was confided during her father's journeys to the care of the Dumays, who were under obligations to the Mignons; she married Ernest de la Bastie-La Briere (also called La Briere-la Bastie). The brilliant career of Charles Mignon was the means of his reassuming the title, Comte de la Bastie. [Modeste Mignon.]

MIGNON (Madame Charles), wife of the preceding, born Bettina Wallenrod-Tustall-Bartenstild, indulged daughter of a banker in Frankfort-on-the-Main. She became blind soon after her elder daughter, Bettina-Caroline's troubles and early death, and had a presentiment of the romance connected with her younger daughter, Marie-Modeste, who became Madame Ernest de la Bastie-La Briere. Towards the close of the Restoration, Madame Charles Mignon, as the result of an operation by Desplein, recovered her sight and was a witness of Marie-Modeste's happiness. [Modeste Mignon.]

MIGNON (Bettina-Caroline), elder daughter of the preceding couple; born in 1805, the very image of her father; a typical Southern girl; was favored by her mother over her younger sister, Marie-Modeste, a kind of "Gretchen," who was similar in appearance to Madame Mignon.

Bettina-Caroline was seduced, taken away and finally deserted by a "gentleman of fortune," named D'Estourny, and shortly sank at Havre under the load of her sins and suffering, surrounded by nearly all of her family. Since 1827 there has been inscribed on her tomb in the little Ingouville cemetery the following inscription: "Bettina Caroline Mignon, died when twenty-two years of age. Pray for her!"

[Modeste Mignon.]

MIGNON (Marie-Modeste). (See La Bastie-La Briere, Madame Ernest de.)

MIGNONNET, born in 1782, graduate of the military schools, was an artillery captain in the Imperial Guard, but resigned under the Restoration and lived at Issoudun. Short and thin, but of dignified bearing; much occupied with science; friend of the cavalry officer Carpentier, with whom he joined the citizens against Maxence Gilet.

Gilet's military partisans, Commandant Potel and Captain Renard, lived in the Faubourg of Rome, Belleville of the corporation of Berry. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

MILAUD, handsome representative of the self-enriched plebeian branch of Milauds; relative of Jean-Athanase-Polydore Milaud de la Baudraye, in whose marriage he put no confidence, and from whom he expected to receive an inheritance. Under the favor of Marchangy, he undertook the career of a public prosecutor. Under Louis XVIII. he was a deputy at Angouleme, a position to which he was succeeded by maitre Petit-Claud.

Milaud eventually performed the same duties at Nevers, which was probably his native country. [Lost Illusions. The Muse of the Department.]

MILAUD DE LA BAUDRAYE. (See La Baudraye.)

MILLET, Parisian grocer, on rue Chanoinesse, in 1836 attended to the renting of a small unfurnished room in Madame de la Chanterie's house; gave Godefroid information, after having submitted him to a rigid examination. [The Seamy Side of History.]

MINARD (Louis), refractory "chauffeur," connected with the Royalist insurrection in western France, 1809, was tried at the bar of justice, where Bourlac and Mergi presided; he was executed the same year that he was condemned to death. [The Seamy Side of History.]

MINARD (Auguste-Jean-Francois), as clerk to the minister of finances he received a salary of fifteen hundred francs. In the florist establishment of a fellow-workman's sister, Mademoiselle Godard, of rue Richelieu, he met a clerk, Zelie Lorain, the daughter of a porter.

He fell in love with her, married her, and had by her two children, Julien and Prudence. He lived near the Courcelles gate, and as an economical worker of retiring disposition he was made the butt of J.-J. Bixiou's jests in the Treasury Department. Necessity gave him fortitude and originality. After giving up his position in December, 1824, Minard opened a trade in adulterated teas and chocolates, and subsequently became a distiller. In 1835 he was the richest merchant in the vicinity, having an establishment on the Place Maubert and one of the best houses on the rue des Macons-Sorbonne. In 1840 Minard became mayor of the eleventh district, where he lived, judge of the tribunal of commerce, and officer of the Legion of Honor. He frequently met his former colleagues of the period of the Restoration:

Colleville, Thuillier, Dutocq, Fleury, Phellion, Xavier Rabourdin, Saillard, Isidore Baudoyer and Godard. [The Government Clerks. The Firm of Nucingen. The Middle Classes.]

MINARD (Madame), wife of the preceding, born Zelie Lorain, daughter of a porter. On account of her cold and prudent disposition, she did not persist long in her trial at the Conservatory, but became a florist's girl in Mademoiselle Godard's establishment on rue Richelieu. After her marriage to Francois Minard she gave birth to two children, and, with the help of Madame Lorain, her mother, reared them comfortably near the Courcelles gate. Under Louis Philippe, having become rich, and living in that part of the Saint-Germain suburbs which lies next to Saint-Jacques, she showed, as did her husband, the silly pride of the enriched mediocrity. [The Government Clerks. The Middle Classes.]