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
