* Perhaps the fresco-painter, Laurent-Jan, author of "Unrepentant
Misanthropy," and the friend of Balzac, to whom the latter
dedicated his drama, "Vautrin."
JANVIER, priest in a village of Isere in 1829, a "veritable Fenelon shrunk to a cure's proportions"; knew, understood and assisted Benassis. [The Country Doctor.]
JAPHET (Baron), celebrated chemist who subjected to hydrofluoric acid, to chloride of nitrogen, and to the action of the voltaic battery the mysterious "magic skin" of Raphael de Valentin. To his stupefaction the savant wrought no change on the tissue. [The Magic Skin.]
JEAN, coachman and trusted servant of M. de Merret, at Vendome, in 1816. [La Grande Breteche.]
JEAN, landscape gardener and farm-hand for Felix Grandet, enagaged about November, 1819, in a field on the bank of the Loire, filling holes left by removed populars and planting other trees. [Eugenie Grandet.]
JEAN, one of the keepers of Pere-Lachaise cemetery in 1820-21; conducted Desmarets and Jacquet to the tomb of Clemence Bourignard, who had recently been interred.* [The Thirteen.]
* In 1868, at Paris, MM. Ferdinand Dugue and Peaucellier presented a
play at the Gaite theatre, where one of the chief characters was
Clemence Bourignard-Desmarets.
JEAN, lay brother of an abbey until 1791, when he found a home with Niseron, cure of Blangy, Burgundy; seldom left Gregoire Rigou, whose factotum he finally became. [The Peasantry.]
JEANNETTE, born in 1758; cook for Ragon at Paris in 1818, in rue du Petit-Lion-Saint-Sulpice; distinguished herself at the Sunday receptions. [Cesar Birotteau.]
JEANRENAUD (Madame), a Protestant, widow of a salt bargeman, by whom she had a son. A stout, ugly and vulgar woman, who recovered, during the Restoration, a fortune that had been stolen by the Catholic ancestors of D'Espard and was restored to him despite a suit to restrain him by injunction. Mme. Jeanrenaud lived at Villeparisis, and then at Paris, where she dwelt successively on rue de la Vrilliere— No. 8—and on Grand rue Verte. [The Commission in Lunacy.]