GODEMARD, a pupil of Dequersonniere, the architect. See Gorju. L’Oeuvre.
GOMARD, the keeper of a working-man’s cafe in Rue de la Femme-sans-Tete, under the sign Au Chien de Montargis. Claude Lantier occasionally took his meals there. L’Oeuvre.
GONIN, a family of fisher-folks who lived at Bonneville. It consisted of Gonin, his wife, and one little girl. A cousin of the wife, named Cuche, came to live with them after his house had been washed away by the sea. Gonin soon after fell into bad health, and his wife and Cuche treated him so badly that the police talked of an inquiry. Pauline Quenu tried to reform the little girl, who had been allowed to grow up wild. La Joie de Vivre.
GORJU, a pupil of Dequersonniere, and himself a future architect. On one of the walls of the studio one could read this brief statement: “The 7th June, Gorju has said that he cared nothing for Rome. Signed, Godemard.” L’Oeuvre.
GOUJET, a blacksmith from the Departement du Nord, who came to Paris and got employment in a manufactory of bolts. “Behind the silent quietude of his life lay buried a great sorrow: his father in a moment of drunken madness had killed a fellow-workman with a crowbar, and after arrest had hanged himself in his cell with a pocket-handkerchief.” Goujet and his mother, who lived with him, always seemed to feel this horror weighing upon them, and did their best to redeem it by strict uprightness. “He was a giant of twenty-three, with rosy cheeks and blue eyes, and the strength of a Hercules. In the workshop he was known as Gueule d’Or, on account of his yellow beard. With his square head, his heavy frame, torpid after the hard work at the anvil, he was like a great animal, dull of intellect and good of heart.” For a time the Coupeaus were his neighbours, and he came to love Gervaise with a perfectly innocent affection, which survived all disillusionments, and subsisted up to the time of her death. It was he who lent her money to start a laundry, and afterwards repeatedly assisted her when in difficulties. L’Assommoir.
GOUJET (MADAME), mother of the preceding, was a lace-mender, and lived with her son in part of the house first occupied by the Coupeaus. She showed much kindness to them, though she was distressed by her son’s infatuation for Gervaise, and did not altogether approve of his lending her money to start a laundry. Notwithstanding this, she continued to assist Gervaise until neglect of work entrusted made it impossible to do so longer. She died in October, 1868, of acute rheumatism. L’Assommoir.
GOURAUD (BARON), was made a Baron by Napoleon I, and was a Senator under Napoleon III. “With his vast bulk, his bovine face, his elephantine movements, he boasted a delightful rascality; he sold himself majestically, and committed the greatest infamies in the name of duty and conscience.” La Curee.
GOURD (M.), at one time valet to the Duc de Vaugelade, and afterwards doorkeeper in the tenement-house in Rue de Choiseul which belonged to M. Vabre, and was occupied by the Campardons, the Josserands, and others. He spent much of his time spying on the tenants, and posed as guardian of the morals of the establishment. Pot-Bouille.
GOURD (MADAME), wife of the preceding. She was the widow of a bailiff at Mort-la-Ville, and she and her present husband owned a house there. She was exceedingly stout, and suffered from an affection of the legs which prevented her from walking. Pot-Bouille.
GRADELLE, brother of Madame Quenu, senr., and uncle of Florent and Quenu. He was a prosperous pork-butcher in Paris, and after Florent’s arrest he took young Quenu into his business. He died suddenly, without leaving a will, and Quenu succeeded to the business, and to a considerable sum of money which was found hidden at the bottom of a salting-tub. Le Ventre de Paris.