Page:Repertory of the Comedie Humaine.djvu/492

 distant from Limoges; left his village in August, 1829, immediately after the execution of his son, Jean-Francois. With his wife, parents, children and grandchildren, he sailed for America, where he prospered and founded the town of Tascheronville in the State of Ohio. (The Country Parson)

TASCHERON (Jean-Francois), one of the sons of the preceding, born about 1805, a porcelain maker, working successively with Messieurs Graslin and Philippart; at the end of Charles X.'s reign, he committed a triple crime which, owing to his excellent character and antecedents, seemed for a long time inexplicable. Jean-Francois Tascheron fell in love with the wife of his first employer, Pierre Graslin, and she reciprocated the passion; to prepare a way for them to escape together, he went one night to the house of Pingret, a rich and miserly husbandman in the Faubourg Saint-Etienne, robbed him of a large sum of money, and, thinking to assure his safety, murdered the old man and his servant, Jeanne Malassis. Being arrested, despite his precautions, Jean-Francois Tascheron made especial effort not to compromise Madame Graslin. Condemned to death, he refused to confess, and was deaf to the prayers of Pascal, the chaplain, yielding somewhat, however, to his other visitors, the Abbe Bonnet, his mother, and his sister Denise; as a result of their influence he restored a considerable portion of the hundred thousand francs stolen. He was executed at Limoges, in August, 1829. He was the natural father of Francois Graslin. (The Country Parson)

TASCHERON (Louis-Marie), a brother of the preceding; with Denise Tascheron (afterwards Denise Gerard) he fulfilled a double mission: he destroyed the traces of the crime of Jean-Francois, that might betray Madame Graslin, and restored the rest of the stolen money to Pingret's heirs, Monsieur and Madame de Vanneaulx. (The Country Parson)

TASCHERON (Denise), a sister of the preceding. (See Gerard, Madame Gregoire.)

TAUPIN, cure of Soulanges (Bourgogne), co