REMONENCQ (Mademoiselle), sister of the preceding, "a kind of idiot with a vacant stare, dressed like a Japanese idol." She was her brother's house-keeper. [Cousin Pons.]
REMONENCQ (Madame), born in 1796, at one time a beautiful oyster-woman of the "Cadran Bleu" in Paris; married for love the porter-tailor, Cibot, in 1828, and lived with him in the porter's lodge of a house on rue de Normandie, belonging to Claude-Joseph Pillerault. In this house the musicians, Pons and Schmucke, lived. She busied herself for some time with the management of the house and the cooking for these two celibates. At first she was faithful, but finally, moved by Remonencq, and encouraged by Fontaine, the necromancer, she robbed the ill-fated Pons. Her husband having been poisoned, without her knowledge, by Remonencq, she married the second-hand dealer, now a dealer in curiosities, and proprietor of the beautiful shop on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. She survived her second husband. [Cousin Pons.]
REMY (Jean), peasant of Arcis-sur-Aube, against whom a neighbor lost a lawsuit concerning a boundary line. This neighbor, who was given to drink, used strong language in speaking against Jean Remy in a session of the electors who had organized in the interest of Dorlange-Sallenauve, a candidate, in the month of April, 1839. If we may believe this neighbor, Jean Remy was a wife-beater, and had a daughter who had obtained, through the influence of a deputy, and apparently without any claim, an excellent tobacco-stand on rue Mouffetard. [The Member for Arcis.]
RENARD, former captain in the Imperial army, withdrew to Issoudun during the Restoration; one of the officers in the Faubourg de Rome, who were hostile to the "pekins" and partisans of Maxence (Max) Gilet. Renard and Commandant Potel were seconds for Maxence in his duel with Philippe Bridau—a duel which resulted in the former's death. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]
RENARD, regimental quartermaster in the cavalry, 1812. Although educated as a notary he became an under officer. He had the face of a girl and was considered a "wheedler." He saved the life of his friend, Genestas, several times, but enticed away from him a Polish Jewess, whom he loved, married in Sarmatian fashion, and left enceinte. When fatally wounded in the battle against the Russians, just before the battle of Lutzen, in his last hours, to Genestas, he acknowledged having betrayed the Jewess, and begged this gentleman to marry her and claim the child, which would soon be born. This was done by the innocent officer. Renard was the son of a Parisian wholesale grocer, a "toothless shark," who would not listen to anything concerning the quartermaster's offspring. [The Country Doctor.]
RENARD (Madame). (See Genestas, Madame.)
RENARD (Adrien). (See Genestas, Adrien.)
RENE, the only servant to M. du Bousquier of Alencon, in 1816; a silly Breton servant, who, although very greedy, was perfectly reliable. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]
RESTAUD (Comte de), a man whose sad life was first brought to the notice of Barchou de Penhoen, a school-mate of Dufaure and Lambert; born about 1780; husband of Anastasie Goriot, by whom he was ruined; died in December, 1824, while trying to adjust matters favorably for his eldest son, Ernest, the only one of Madame de Restaud's three children whom he recognized as his own. To this end he had pretended that, having been very extravagant, he was greatly in debt to Gobseck. He assured his son by another letter of the real condition of his estate. M. de Restaud, was similar in appearance to the Duc de Richelieu, and had the proud manners of the statesman of the aristocratic faubourg. [Gobseck. Father Goriot.]
RESTAUD (Comtesse Anastasie de), wife of the preceding; elder daughter of the vermicelli-maker, Jean-Joachim Goriot; a beautiful brunette of queenly bearing and manners. Like the fair and gentle Madame de Nucingen, her sister, she showed herself severe and ungrateful towards the kindliest and weakest of fathers. She had three children, two boys and a girl; Ernest, the eldest, being the only legitimate one. She ruined herself for Trailles, her lover's benefit, selling her jewels to Gobseck and endangering her children's future. As soon as her husband had breathed his last, in a moment anxiously awaited, she took from under his pillow and burned the papers which she believed contrary to her own interests and those of her two natural children. It thus followed that Gobseck, the fictitious creditor, gained a claim on all of the remaining property. [Gobseck. Father Goriot.]