DUVAL, wealthy forge-master of Alencon, whose daughter the grand-niece of M. du Croisier (du Bousquier), was married in 1830 to Victurnien d’Esgrignon.  Her dowry was three million francs. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

DUVAL, famous professor of chemistry at Paris in 1843.  A friend of Dr. Bianchon, at whose instance he analyzed the blood of M. and Mme. Crevel, who were infected by a peculiar cutaneous disease of which they died. [Cousin Betty.]

DUVIGNON. (See Lanty, de.)

DUVIVIER, jeweler at Vendome during the Empire.  Mme. de Merret declared to her husband that she had purchased of this merchant an ebony crucifix encrusted with silver; but in truth she had obtained it of her lover, Bagos de Feredia.  She swore falsely on this very crucifix. [La Grande Breteche.]

E

EMILE, a “lion of the most triumphant kind,” of the acquaintance of Mme. Komorn—­Countess Godollo.  One evening in 1840 or 1841 this woman, in order to avoid Theodose de la Peyrade, on the Boulevard des Italiens, took the dandy’s arm and requested him to take her to Mabille. [The Middle Classes.]

ESGRIGNON (Charles-Marie-Victor-Ange-Carol, Marquis d’), or, Des Grignons—­following the earlier name—­commander of the Order of Saint-Louis; born about 1750, died in 1830.  Head of a very ancient family of the Francs, the Karawls who came from the North to conquer the Gauls, and who were entrusted with the defence of a French highway.  The Esgrignons, quasi-princes under the house of Valois and all-powerful under Henry IV., were very little known at the court of Louis XVIII.; and the marquis, ruined by the Revolution, lived in rather reduced circumstances at Alencon in an old gable-roofed house formerly belonging to him, which had been sold as common property, and which the faithful notary Chesnel had repurchased, together with certain portions of his other estates.  The Marquis d’Esgrignon, though not having to emigrate, was still obliged to conceal himself.  He participated in the Vendean struggle against the Republic, and was one of the members of the Committee Royal of Alencon.  In 1800, at the age of fifty, in the hope of perpetuating his race, he married Mlle. de Nouastre, who died in child-birth, leaving the marquis an only son.  M. d’Esgrignon always overlooked the escapades of this child, whose reputation was preserved by Chesnel; and he passed away shortly after the downfall of Charles X., saying:  “The Gauls triumph.” [The Chouans.  Jealousies of a Country Town.]

ESGRIGNON (Madame d’) nee Nouastre; of blood the purest and noblest; married at twenty-two, in 1800, to Marquis Carol d’Esgrignon, a man of fifty.  She soon died at the birth of an only son.  She was “the prettiest of human beings; in her person were reawakened the charms —­now fanciful—­of the feminine figures of the sixteenth century.” [Jealousies of a Country Town.]