FOUAN (FANNY). See Madame Delhomme.
FOUAN (HYACINTHE), the elder son of Pere Fouan and Rose Maliverne, his wife. He was an idler and drunkard, who, when he had left the army, after having seen service in Africa, had taken to tramp the fields, refusing to do any regular work, but living by theft and poaching, as though he were still looting a trembling nation of Bedouins. Withal there looked out of his fine, sunken eyes a merriment that was not altogether evil, the open heart of good-humoured drunkenness. He lived with his daughter in a ruined hut amongst some rocks near Rognes. After the division of land by his father, Hyacinthe soon mortgaged his share and drank the proceeds, never paying to his parents any part of the rent which had been agreed upon. For a time he sheltered his father, but frightened the old man by searching for some bonds which he had concealed. He had, however, neither the cold rapacity of his sister Fanny nor the murderous instincts of his brother Buteau. La Terre.
FOUAN (JOSEPH CASIMIR), the father of Marianne, Louis, Michel, and Laure. Born in 1766, he belonged to a family of peasant proprietors which for centuries had owned land, in varying quantities, in the neighbourhood of Rognes. They were originally serfs of the Roques-Bouqueval family. Bit by bit they acquired their land, until, when the Revolution of 1789 arrived, the Fouan of that day, Joseph Casimir, was the owner of twenty-one acres—the conquest of four centuries from the seigneurial territory. When, in 1793, the rest of the estate was declared national property and sold in lots by auction, he was too timid to purchase any, and had the mortification to see La Borderie sold to Isidore Hourdequin, a citizen of Chateaudun, for a fifth of its value. When he became old he divided his twenty-one acres between three of his family, Marianne, Louis, and Michel, and gave a corresponding sum of money to his younger daughter Laure, who had been brought up as a sempstress and was in service at Chateaudun. La Terre.
FOUAN (LAURE), younger daughter of the preceding. See Madame Charles Badeuil.
FOUAN (LOUIS), known as Pere Fouan. He was the son of Joseph Casimir Fouan, and married Rose Maliverne, by whom he had three children, Hyacinthe, Buteau, and Fanny. He received seven acres of land from his father, and his wife brought him twelve acres more. This land he cultivated well, and with a passion for the soil, as such, which amounted to frenzy. It alone had his love, and his wife and children trembled before him under a rude despotism. At seventy years of age he was still healthy, but his limbs were failing, and he reluctantly decided to divide his land between his children. He retained his house and garden, which had come to him with his wife, and his family undertook to pay him a rent for the land handed over to them. Upon this, along with a nest-egg of three hundred francs per annum, known to no one, the old people would be able to live comfortably. The division made, the family soon became rapacious; Hyacinthe never paid anything, Buteau only a part, and Delhomme, Fanny’s husband, alone fulfilled his obligation. Mere Fouan died, and the old man lived alone for a year; after that he went to his daughter Fanny Delhomme, but her unkindness made his life miserable, and he accepted in turn the hospitality of his two sons, Buteau and Hyacinthe, both of whom had come to suspect the existence of his nest-egg and were anxious to secure it. In this sordid aim Buteau was eventually successful, and his subsequent treatment of the old man was even more infamous than it had been before. From this time Pere Fouan lived in isolation; he spoke to none and looked at none; as far as appearances went, he might have been blind and dumb. But even worse was to follow. He had seen the assault on Francoise Mouche which resulted in her death, and to ensure his silence he was murdered by Buteau and Lise, his son and daughter-in-law, who attempted to suffocate him, and subsequently burned him alive in his bed. La Terre.
FOUAN (MADAME ROSE), wife of the preceding, nee Maliverne. She worked on the farm like a man, rising first and going to bed last, her only reward being that she had lived. Stupid, and reduced by labour to the level of an animal, she had always trembled before the despotic authority of her husband. She brought up her family without love, and as if she resented their requiring even the simple necessaries of life. She did not long survive the division of land by her husband. Her favouritism for Hyacinthe, her elder son, excited the jealousy of Buteau, who in the course of a quarrel threw her to the ground, when she received such injuries that she died a few hours afterwards. La Terre.
FOUAN (MARIANNE). See La Grande.
FOUAN (MICHEL). See Pere Mouche.
FOUAN (OLYMPE), daughter of Hyacinthe. Her mother, who was a tramp, ran off when the child was three years old, leaving her to grow up as best she could. She was passionately fond of geese, of which she had a large flock. When little more than a child, she had as her lovers Delphin Becu and Nenesse Delhomme. La Terre.
FOUCARMONT, a naval officer who in ten years saved some money which he proposed to invest in the United States. He fell into the hands of Nana, however, and was soon completely ruined. When she turned him out of doors penniless, she merely advised him to go back to his ship. He was drowned later in the China seas. Nana.