followed at the home of Florine. (A Start in Life) In 1831 Gaudissart said that his friend Finot had an income of thirty thousand francs, that he would be councillor of state, and was booked for a peer of France. He aspired to end up as his "shareholder." (Gaudissart the Great) In 1836 Finot was dining with Blondet, his fellow-editor, and with Couture, a man about town, in a private room of a well-known restaurant, when he heard the story of the financial trickeries of Nucingen, wittily related by Bixiou. (The Firm of Nucingen) Finot concealed "a brutal nature under a mild exterior," and his "impertinent stupidity was flecked with wit as the bread of a laborer is flecked with garlic." (Scenes from a Courtesan's Life)
FIRMIANI, a respectable quadragenarian who in 1813 married the lady who afterwards became Mme. Octave de Camps. He was unable, so it was said, to offer her more than his name and his fortune. He was formerly receiver-general in the department of Montenotte. He died in Greece in 1823. (Madame Firmiani)
FIRMIANI (Madame). (See Camps, Mme. de.)
FISCHER, the name of three brothers, laborers in a village situated on the extreme frontiers of Lorraine, at the foot of the Vosges. They set out to join the army of the Rhine by reason of Republican conscriptions. The first, Pierre, father of Lisbeth—or "Cousin Betty"—was killed in 1815 in the Francstireurs. The second, Andre, father of Adeline who became the wife of Baron Hulot, died at Treves in 1820. The third, Johann, having committed some acts of peculation, at the instigation of his nephew Hulot, while a commissary contractor in Algiers, province of Oran, committed suicide in 1841. He was over seventy when he killed himself. (Cousin Betty)
FISCHER (Adeline). (See Hulot, d'Ervy, Baronne Hector.)
FISCHER (Lisbeth), known as "Cousin Betty"; born in 1796; brought up a peasant. In her childhood she had to give way to her first cousin, the pretty Adeline, who was pampered by the whole family. In 1809 she was called to Paris by Adeline's
