第48章 C(18)

CREVEL (Madame Celestin), born Valerie Fortin in 1815; natural daughter of the Comte de Montcornet, marshal of France; married, first Marneffe, an employe in the War Office, with whom she broke faith by agreement with the clerk; and second, Celestin Crevel. She bore Marneffe a child, a stunted, scrawny urchin named Stanislas. An intimate friend of Lisbeth Fischer who utilized Valerie's irresistible attractions for the satisfying of her hatred towards her rich relatives. At this time Mme. Marneffe belonged jointly to Marneffe, to the Brazilian Montes, to Steinbock the Pole, to Celestin Crevel and to Baron Hulot. Each of these she held responsible for a child born in 1841, and which died on coming into the world. By prearrangement, she was surprised with Hulot by the police-commissioners, during this period, in Crevel's cottage on rue du Dauphin. After having lived with Marneffe on rue du Doyenne in the house occuped by Lisbeth Fischer--

"Cousin Betty"--she was installed by Baron Hulot on rue Vaneau; then by Crevel in a mansion on rue Barbet-de-Jouy. She died in 1843, two days prior to Celestin. She perished while trying to "cajole God"--to use her own expression. She bequeathed, as a restitution, 300,000 francs to Hector Hulot. Valerie Marneffe did not lack spirit. Claude Vignon, the great critic, especially appreciated this woman's intellectual depravity. [Cousin Betty.]

CROCHARD, Opera dancer in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Director of theatrical evolutions. He commanded a band of assailants upon the Bastile, July 14, 1789; became an officer, a colonel, dying of wounds received at Lutzen, May 2, 1813. [A Second Home.]

CROCHARD (Madame), widow of the preceding. Before the Revolution she had sung with her husband in the chorus. In 1815 she lived wretchedly with her daughter Caroline, following the embroiderer's trade, in a house on rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, which belonged to Molineux.

Wishing to find a protector for her daughter, Caroline, Mme. Crochard favored the attentions of the Comte de Granville. He rewarded her with a life-annuity of three thousand francs. She died, in 1822, in a comfortable lodging on rue Saint-Louis at Marais. She constantly wore on her breast the cross of chevalier of the Legion of Honor conferred on her husband by the Emperor. The widow Crochard, watched by an eager circle, received, at her last moments, a visit from Abbe Fontanon, confessor of the Comtesse de Granville, and was greatly troubled by the prelate's proceedings. [A Second Home.]

CROCHARD (Caroline), daughter of the proceding; born in 1797. For several years during the Restoration she was the mistress of Comte de Granville; at that time she was known as Mlle. de Bellefeuille, from the name of a small piece of property at Gatinais given to the young woman by an uncle of the comte who had taken a liking to her. Her lover installed her in an elegant apartment on rue Taitbout, where Esther Gobseck afterwards lived. Caroline Crochard abandoned M. de Granville and a good position for a needy young fellow named Solvet, who ran through with all her property. Sick and poverty-stricken in 1833, she lived in a wretched two-story house on rue Gaillon. She gave the Comte de Granville a son, Charles, and a daughter, Eugenie. [A Second Home.]