in turn, intendant-general, director of the War Department, councillor of state, and grand officer of the Legion of Honor. His private misbehavior dated from these periods and gathered force while he lived in Paris. Each of his successive mistresses—Jenny Cadine, Josepha Mirah, Valerie Marneffe, Olympe Bijou, Elodie Chardin, Atala Judici, Agathe Piquetard—precipitated his dishonor and ruin. He hid under various names, as Thoul, Thorec and Vyder, anagrams of Hulot, Hector and d'Ervy. Neither the persecutions of the money-lender Samanon nor the influence of his family could reform him. After his wife's death he married, February 1, 1846, Agathe Piquetard, his kitchen-girl and the lowest of his servants. (Cousin Betty)
HULOT D'ERVY (Baronne Hector), wife of the preceding; born Adeline Fischer, about 1790, in the village of Vosges; remarkable for her beauty; was married for mutual love, despite her inferior birth, and for some time lived caressed and adored by her husband and venerated by her brother-in-law. At the end of the Empire probably commenced her sorrows and the faithlessness of Hector, notwithstanding the two children born of their union, Victorin and Hortense. Had it not been for her maternal solicitude the baroness could have condoned the gradual degradation of her husband. The honor of the name and the future of her daughter gave her concern. No sacrifice was too great for her. She vainly offered herself to Celestin Crevel, whom she had formerly scorned, and underwent the parvenu's insults; she besought Josepha Mirah's aid, and rescued the baron from Atala Judici. The closing years of her life were not quite so miserable. She devoted herself to charitable offices, and lived on rue Louis-le-Grand with her married children and their reclaimed father. The intervention of Victorin, and the deaths of the Comte de Forzheim, of Lisbeth Fischer and of M. and Mme. Crevel, induced comfort and security that was often menaced. But the conduct of Hector with Agathe Piquetard broke the thread of Mme. Hulot d'Ervy's life; for some time she had had a nervous trouble. She died aged about fifty-six. (Cousin Betty)
