Page:Repertory of the Comedie Humaine.djvu/62

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BETHUNE (Prince de), the only man of fashion who knew "what a hat was"—to quote a saying of Vital the hatter, in 1845. (The Unconscious Humorists)

BEUNIER & CO., the firm Bixiou inquired after in 1845, near Mme. Nourrisson's. (The Unconscious Humorists)

BIANCHI. Italian. During the first Empire a captain in the sixth regiment of the French line, which was made up almost entirely of men of his nationality. Celebrated in his company for having bet that he would eat the heart of a Spanish sentinel, and winning that bet. Captain Bianchi was first to plant the French colors on the wall of Tarragone, Spain, in the attack of 1808. But a friar killed him. (The Maranas)

BIANCHON (Doctor), a physician of Sancerre, father of Horace Bianchon, brother of Mme. Popinot, the wife of Judge Popinot. (The Commission in Lunacy)

BIANCHON (Horace), a physician of Paris, celebrated during the times of Charles X. and Louis Philippe; an officer of the Legion of Honor, member of the Institute, professor of the Medical Faculty, physician-in-charge, at the same time, of a hospital and the Ecole Polytechnique. Born at Sancerre, Cher, about the end of the eighteenth century. He was "interne" at the Cochin Hospital in 1819, at which time he boarded at the Vauquer Pension where he knew Eugene de Rastignac, then studying law, and Goriot and Vautrin. (Father Goriot) Shortly thereafter, at Hotel Dieu, he became the favored pupil of the surgeon Desplein, whose last days he tended. (The Atheist's Mass) Nephew of Judge Jean-Jules Popinot and relative of Anselme Popinot, he had dealings with the perfumer Cesar Birotteau, who acknowledged indebtedness to him for a prescription of his famous hazelnut oil, and who invited him to the grand ball which precipitated Birotteau's bankruptcy. (Cesar Birotteau, The Commission in Lunacy) Member of the "Cenacle" in rue des Quatre-Vents, and on intimate terms with all the young fellows composing this clique, he was