Page:Repertory of the Comedie Humaine.djvu/44

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of work. He was a deputy sitting on the right and upholding the Royalist platform of Divine Right. When he had acquired a competence, he had a most vulgar and incomprehensible liaison with a woman tolerably pretty, but belonging to a lower society and without either education or breeding. D'Arthez maintained her, nevertheless, carefully concealing her from sight; but, far from being a pleasurable manner of life, it became odious to him. It was at this time that he was invited to the home of Diane de Maufrigneuse, Princesse de Cadignan, who was then thirty-six, but did not look it. The famous "great coquette" told him her (so-called) "secrets," offered herself outright to this man whom she treated as a "famous simpleton," and whom she made her lover. After that day there was no doubt about the relations of the princesse and Daniel d'Arthez. The great author, whose works became very rare, appeared only during some of the winter months at the Chamber of Deputies. (A Distinguished Provincial at Paris, Letters of Two Brides, The Member for Arcis, The Secrets of a Princess)

ASIE, one of the pseudonyms of Jacqueline Collin. (See that name.) (Scenes from a Courtesan's Life)

ATHALIE, cook for Mme. Schontz in 1836. According to her mistress, she was specially gifted in preparing venison. (The Muse of the Department)

AUBRION (Marquis d'), a gentleman-in-waiting of the Bedchamber, under Charles X. He was of the house of Aubrion de Buch, whose last head died before 1789. He was silly enough to wed a woman of fashion, though he was already an old man of but twenty thousand francs income, a sum hardly sufficient in Paris. He tried to marry his daughter without a dowry to some man who was intoxicated with nobility. In 1827, to quote Mme. d'Aubrion, this ancient wreck was madly devoted to the Duchesse de Chaulieu (Eugenie Grandet)

AUBRION (Marquise d'), wife of the preceding. Born in 1789. At thirty-eight she was still pretty, and, having