Page:Repertory of the Comedie Humaine.djvu/411

 One of his pupils, Ginevra di Piombo, discovered the outlaw's hiding-place, aided him, fell in love with him, made him fall in love with her, and married him, despite the opposition of her father, Bartolomeo di Piombo. Luigi Porta chose as a witness, when he was married, his former comrade, Louis Vergniaud, also known to Hyacinthe Chabert. He lived from hand to mouth by doing secretary's work, lost his wife, and, crushed by poverty, went to tell the Piombos of her death. He died almost immediately after her (1820). (The Vendetta)

PORTA (Madame Luigi), wife of the preceding, born Ginevra di Piombo about 1790; shared, in Corsica as in Paris, the stormy life of her father and mother, whose adored child she was. In Servin's, the painter's studio, where with her talent she shone above the whole class, Ginevra knew Mesdames Tiphaine and Camusot de Marville, at that time Mesdemoiselles Roguin and Thirion. Defended by Laure alone, she endured the cruelly planned persecution of Amelie Thirion, a Royalist, and an envious woman, especially when the favorite drawing pupil discovered and aided Luigi Porta, whom she married shortly afterwards, against the will of Bartolomeo di Piombo. Madame Porta lived most wretchedly; she resorted to Magus to dispose of copies of paintings at a meagre price; brought a son into the world, Barthelemy; could not nurse him, lost him, and died of grief and exhaustion in the year 1820. (The Vendetta)

PORTAIL (Du), name assumed by Corentin, when as "prefect of secret police of diplomacy and political affairs," he lived on the rue Honore-Chevalier, in the reign of Louis Philippe. (The Government Clerks)

PORTENDUERE (Comte Luc-Savinien de), grandson of Admiral de Portenduere, born about 1788, represented the elder branch of the Portendueres, of whom Madame de Portenduere and her son Savinien represented the younger branch. Under the Restoration, being the husband of a rich wife, the father of three children and member for Isere, he lived, according to the season of the year, in the chateau