Page:Repertory of the Comedie Humaine.djvu/249

This page needs to be proofread.

the Cruchots she often visited the Grandets, and, like the family of the President de Bonfons, she dreamed of mating Eugenie with her son Adolphe. The dissipated life of her husband at Paris and the combination of the Cruchots upset her plans. Nor was she able to do much for her daughter. However, deprived of much of her property and making the best of things, Mme. des Grassins continued unaided the management of the bank at Saumur. (Eugenie Grandet)

GRASSINS (Adolphe des), born in 1797, son of M. and Mme. des Grassins; studied law at Paris where he lived in a lavish way. A caller at the Nucingens where he met Charles Grandet. Returned to Saumur in 1819 and vainly courted Eugenie Grandet. Finally he returned to Paris and rejoined his father whose wild life he imitated. (Eugenie Grandet)

GRASSOU (Pierre), born at Fougeres, Brittany, in 1795. Son of a Vendean peasant and militant Royalist. Removing at an early age to Paris he began as clerk to a paint-dealer who was from Mayenne and a distant relative of the Orgemonts. A mistaken idea led him toward art. His Breton stubbornness led him successively to the studios of Servin, Schinner and Sommervieux. He afterwards studied, but fruitlessly, the works of Granet and Drolling; then he completed his art studies with Duval-Lecamus. Grassou profited nothing by his work with these masters, nor did his acquaintance with Lora or Joseph Bridau assist him. Though he could understand and admire he lacked the creative faculty and the skill in execution. For this reason Grassou, usually called Fougeres by his comrades, obtained their warm support and succeeded in getting admission into the Salon of 1829, for his "Toilet of a Condemned Chouan," a very mediocre painting palpably along the lines of Gerard Dow. The work obtained for him from Charles X. the cross of the Legion of Honor. At last his canvasses found purchasers. Elie Magus gave him an order for pictures after the Flemish school, which he sold to Vervelle as works of Dow or Teniers. At that time Grassou lived at No. 2 rue de Navarin. He became the son-in-law of