SENONCHES (Jacques de), a noble of Angouleme, a great huntsman, stiff and haughty, a sort of wild boar; lived on very good terms with his wife’s lover, Francois du Hautoy, and attended Madame de Bargeton’s receptions. [Lost Illusions.]

SENONCHES (Madame Jacques de), wife of the preceding, bore the given name of Zephirine, which was abbreviated to Zizine.  By Francois du Hautoy, her adored lover, she had a daughter, Francoise de la Haye, who was presented as her ward, and who became Madame Petit-Claud. [Lost Illusions.]

SEPHERD (Carl), name assumed by Charles Grandet in the Indies, the United States, Africa, etc., while he was in the slave-trading business. [Eugenie Grandet.]

SERIZY, or Serisy (Comte Hugret de), born in 1765, descended in direct line from the famous President Hugret, ennobled under Francois I. The motto of this family was “I, semper melius eris,” so that the final s of melius, the word eris, and the I of the beginning, represented the name (Serizy) of the estate that had been made a county.  A son of a first president of Parliament (who died in 1794), Serizy was himself, as early as 1787, a member of the Grand Council; he did not emigrate during the Revolution, but remained in his estate of Serizy, near Arpajon; became a member of the Council of Five Hundred, and afterwards of the Council of State.  The Empire made him a count and a senator.  Hugret de Serizy was married, in 1806, to Leontine de Ronquerolles, the widow of General Gaubert.  This union made him the brother-in-law of the Marquis de Ronquerolles, and the Marquis du Rouvre.  Every honor was alloted to him in course; chamberlain under the Empire, he afterwards became vice-president of the Council of State, peer of France, Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, and member of the Privy Council.  The glorious career of Serizy, who was an unusually industrious person, did not offer compensation for his domestic misfortunes.  Hard work and protracted vigils soon aged the high functionary, who was ever unable to win his wife’s heart; but he loved her and sheltered her none the less constantly.  It was chiefly to avenge her for the indiscretion of the volatile young Oscar Husson, Moreau’s godson, that he discharged the not overhonest steward of Presles. [A Start in Life.] The system of government that succeeded the Empire increased Serizy’s influence and renown; he was an intimate friend of the Bauvans and the Grandvilles. [A Bachelor’s Establishment.  Honorine.  Modeste Mignon.] His weakness in matters concerning his wife was such that he assisted her in person, when, in May, 1830, she hastened to the Conciergerie in the hope of saving her lover, Lucien de Rubempre, and entered the cell where the young man had just committed suicide.  Serizy even consented to be executor of the poet’s will. [Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.]