Page:Repertory of the Comedie Humaine.djvu/426

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REGNAULT, former chief clerk to Maitre Roguin, a Paris notary; came to Vendome in 1816 and purchased there a notaryship. He was called by Madame de Merret to her death-bed, and was made her executor. In this position, some years later, he urged Doctor Bianchon to respect one of the last wishes of the deceased by discontinuing his promenades in the Grande Breteche garden, as she had wished this property to remain entirely unused for half a century. Maitre Regnault married a wealthy cousin of Vendome. Regnault was tall and slender, with sloping forehead, small pointed head and wan complexion. He frequently used the expression, "One moment." (La Grande Breteche)

REGNIER (Claude-Antoine), Duc de Massa, born in 1746, died 1814; an advocate, and afterwards deputy to the Constituency; was high justice—justice of the peace—during the celebrated trial of the Simeuses and Hauteserres, accused of the abduction of Senator Malin. He noticed the talent displayed by Granville for the defendants, and a little later, having met him at Archchancelor Cambaceres's house, he took the young barrister into his own carriage, setting him down on the Quai des Augustins, at the young man's door, after giving him some practical advice and assuring him of his protection. (The Gondreville Mystery, A Second Home)

REMONENCQ, an Auvergnat, dealer in old iron, established on rue de Normandie, in the house in which Pons and Schmucke lived, and where the Cibots were porters. Remonencq, who had come to Paris with the intention of being a porter, ran errands between 1825 and 1831 for the dealers in curiosities on Boulevard Beaumarchais and the coppersmiths on rue de Lappe, then opened in this same quarter a small shop for odds and ends. He lived there in sordid economy. He had been in Sylvain Pons's house, and had fully recognized the great value of the aged collector's treasures. His greed urged him to crime, and he instigated Madame Cibot in her theft at the Pons house. After receiving his share of the property, he poisoned the husband of the portress, in order to marry the widow, with whom he established a