GRAS (MADAME), an old lady living in the Rue des Orties, who boarded and lodged young children for a small sum. When Denise Baudu got a situation in “The Ladies’ Paradise,” she put her young brother Pepe under the charge of Madame Gras for a time. Au Bonheur des Dames.
GREGOIRE (CECILE), daughter of Leon Gregoire. Her parents were devoted to her, and brought her up in happy ignorance, allowing her to do much as she liked. They taught her to be charitable, and made her dispense their little gifts to the poor; these were always in kind, as they held that money was likely to be misused. When the great strike broke out at Montsou, Cecile could comprehend nothing of the revolt of the poor, or the fury with which they regarded those better off than themselves, and when she fell into the hands of a fierce crowd was almost paralysed under the attack of La Brule and of Pere Bonnemort, from which she escaped with difficulty. A little later she chanced to call on a charitable errand at Maheu’s house, and unfortunately was left alone for a few moments with Bonnemort, who was now supposed to be helpless. The sight of her seemed, however, to waken memories in the old man, for in an accession of madness he found strength to throw himself upon the poor girl and strangle her. Germinal.
GREGOIRE (EUGENE), grandfather of Leon Gregoire. He inherited the share in the Montsou mine bought by his father, but the dividends at that time were small, and as he had foolishly invested the remainder of the paternal fortune in a company that came to grief, he lived meanly enough. The share passed to his son Felicien. Germinal.
GREGOIRE (FELICIEN), son of the preceding and father of Leon Gregoire. The family fortune began with him, for the value of the share in the Montsou mine had greatly increased, and he was able to buy the dismembered estate of Piolaine, which he acquired as national property for a ludicrous sum. However, bad years followed; it was necessary to await the conclusion of the revolutionary catastrophes, and afterwards Napoleon’s bloody fall. The little fortune of Felicien Gregoire passed to his son Leon. Germinal.
GREGOIRE (HONORE), great-grandfather of Leon Gregoire. He was in 1760 steward on the estate of Piolaine, a property which belonged to Baron Desrumaux. When the Montsou treaty was made, Honore, who had laid up savings to the amount of some fifty thousand francs, yielded tremblingly to his master’s unshakable faith. He gave up ten thousand francs, and took a share in the Montsou Company, though with the fear of robbing his children of that sum. When he died his share passed to his son Eugene. Germinal.
GREGOIRE (LEON), great-grandson of Honore Gregoire. It was he who profited at a stupefying rate of progress by the timid investment of his ancestor. Those poor ten thousand francs grew and multiplied with the company’s prosperity. Since 1820 they had brought in cent for cent ten thousand francs. In 1844 they had produced twenty thousand; in 1850, forty. During two years the dividend had reached the prodigious figure of fifty thousand francs; the value of the share, quoted at the Lille Bourse at a million, had centrupled in a century. Six months later an industrial crisis broke out; the share fell to six hundred thousand francs. But Leon refused to be alarmed, for he maintained an obstinate faith in the mine. When the great strike broke out he would not be persuaded of its seriousness, and refused to admit any danger, until he saw his daughter struck by a stone and savagely assaulted by the crowd. Afterwards he desired to show the largeness of his views, and spoke of forgetting and forgiving everything. With his wife and daughter Cecile he went to carry assistance to the Maheus, a family who had suffered sadly in the strike. Cecile was unfortunately left alone with old Bonnemort, Maheu’s father, who in a sudden frenzy attacked the girl and strangled her. This terrible blow entirely shadowed the lives of Gregoire and his wife. Germinal.
GREGOIRE (MADAME LEON), wife of the preceding, was the daughter of a druggist at Marchiennes. She was a plain, penniless girl, whom he adored, and who repaid him with happiness. She shut herself up in her household, having no other will but her husband’s. No difference of tastes separated them, their desires were mingled in one idea of comfort; and they had thus lived for forty years, in affection and little mutual services. Germinal.
GRESHAM, a jockey who, it was said, had always bad luck. He rode Lusignan in the Grand Prix de Paris. Nana.
GROGNET, a perfumer in Rue de Grammont, whose business was ruined by the growth of Octave Mouret’s great establishment. Au Bonheur des Dames.
GROSBOIS, a Government surveyor who had also a small farm at Magnolles, a little village near Rognes. Liable to be summoned from Orgeres to Beaugency for purposes of survey, he left the management of his own land to his wife, and in the course of these constant excursions he acquired such a habit of drinking that he was never seen sober. That mattered little, however; the more drunk he was the better he seemed to see; he never made a wrong measurement or an error in calculation. People listened to him with respect, for he had the reputation of being a sly, acute man. La Terre.