Page:Repertory of the Comedie Humaine.djvu/396

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PICQUOISEAU (Comtesse), widow of a colonel. She and Madame de Vaumerland boarded with one of Madame Vauquer's rivals, according to Madame de l'Ambermesnil. (Father Goriot)

PIUS VII. (Barnabas Chiaramonti), lived from 1740 till 1823; pope. Having been asked by letter in 1806, if a woman might go decollete to the ball or to the theatre, without endangering her welfare, he answered his correspondent, Madame Angelique de Granville, in a manner befitting the gentle Fenelon. (A Second Home)

PIEDEFER (Abraham), descendant of a middle class Calvinist family of Sancerre, whose ancestors in the sixteenth century were skilled workmen, and subsequently woolen-drapers; failed in business during the reign of Louis XVI.; died about 1786, leaving two sons, Moise and Silas, in poverty. (The Muse of the Department)

PIEDEFER (Moise), elder son of the preceding, profited by the Revolution in imitating his forefathers; tore down abbeys and churches; married the only daughter of a Convention member who had been guillotined, and by her had a child, Dinah, later Madame Milaud de la Baudraye; compromised his fortune by his agricultural speculations; died in 1819. (The Muse of the Department)

PIEDEFER (Silas), son of Abraham Piedefer, and younger brother of the preceding; did not receive, as did Moise Piedefer, his part of the small paternal fortune; went to the Indies; died, about 1837, in New York, with a fortune of twelve hundred thousand francs. This money was inherited by his niece, Madame de la Baudraye, but was seized by her husband. (The Muse of the Department)

PIEDEFER (Madame Moise), sister-in-law of the preceding, unaffable and excessively pious; pensioned by her son-in-law; lived successively in Sancerre and at Paris with her daughter, Madame de la Baudraye, whom she managed to separate from Etienne Lousteau. (The Muse of the Department)