Page:Repertory of the Comedie Humaine.djvu/241

 of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries, Ferdinand de Grandlieu was the head of the elder branch, wealthy and ducal, of the house of Grandlieu. Under the Consulate and the Empire his high and assured rank enabled him to intercede with Talleyrand in behalf of M. d'Hauteserre and M. de Simeuse, compromised in the fictitious abduction of Malin de Gondreville. Grandlieu by his marriage with an Ajuda of the elder branch, connected with the Barganzas and of Portuguese descent, had several daughters, the eldest of whom assumed the veil in 1822. His other daughters were Clotilde-Frederique, born in 1802; Josephine the third; Sabine born in 1809; Marie-Athenais, born about 1820. An uncle by marriage of Mme. de Langeais, he had at Paris, in Faubourg Saint-Germain, a hotel where, during the reign of Louis XVIII., the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, the Vidame de Pamiers and the Duc de Navarreins assembled to consider a startling escapade of Antoinette de Langeais. At least ten years later Grandlieu availed himself of his intimate friend Henri de Chaulieu and also of Corentin&mdash;Saint-Denis&mdash;in order to stay the suit against Lucien de Rubempre which was about to compromise his daughter Clotilde-Frederique. (The Gondreville Mystery, The Thirteen, A Bachelor's Establishment, Modeste Mignon, Scenes from a Courtesan's Life)

GRANDLIEU (Duchesse Ferdinand de), of Portuguese descent, born Ajuda and of the elder branch of that house connected with the Braganzas. Wife of Ferdinand de Grandlieu, and mother of several daughters. Of sedentary habits, proud, pious, good-hearted and beautiful, she wielded in Paris during the Restoration a sort of supremacy over the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The second and the next to the youngest of her children gave her much anxiety. Combating the hostility of those about her she welcomed Rubempre, the suitor of her daughter Clotilde-Frederique&mdash;1829-30. The unfortunate results of the marriage of her other daughter Sabine, Baronne Calyste du Guenic, occupied Mme. de Grandlieu's attention in 1837, and she succeeded in reconciling the young couple, with the assistance of Abbe Brossette,