NUCINGEN (Baronne Delphine de), wife of the preceding, born in 1792, of fair complexion; the spoiled daughter of the opulent vermicelli-maker, Jean-Joachim Goriot; on the side of her mother, who died young, the granddaughter of a farmer. In the latter period of the Empire she contracted, greatly to her taste, a marriage for money. Madame de Nucingen formerly had as her lover Henri de Marsay, who finally abandoned her most cruelly. Reduced, at the time of Louis XVIII., to the society of the Chaussee-d'Antin, she was ambitious to be admitted to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, a circle of which her elder sister, Madame de Restaud, was a member. Eugene de Rastignac opened to her the parlor of Madame de Beauseant, his cousin, rue de Greville, in 1819, and, at about the same time, became her lover. Their liaison lasted more than fifteen years. An apartment on the rue d'Artois, fitted up by Jean-Joachim Goriot, sheltered their early love. Having entrusted to Rastignac a certain sum for play at the Palais-Royal, the baroness was able with the proceeds to free herself of a humiliating debt to Marsay. Meanwhile she lost her father. The Nucingen carriage, without an occupant, however, followed the hearse. [Father Goriot.] Madame de Nucingen entertained a great deal on the rue Saint-Lazare. It was there that Auguste de Maulincour saw Clemence Desmarets, and Adolphe des Grassins met Charles Grandet. [The Thirteen. Eugenie Grandet.]
Cesar Birotteau, on coming to beg credit of Nucingen, as also did Rodolphe Castanier, immediately after his forgery, found themselves face to face with the baroness. [Cesar Birotteau. Melmoth Reconciled.]
At this period, Madame de Nucingen took the box at the Opera which Antoinette de Langeais had occupied, believing undoubtedly, said Madame d'Espard, that she would inherit her charms, wit and success.
[Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. The Commission in Lunacy.] According to Diane de Cadignan, Delphine had a horrible journey when she went to Naples by sea, of which she brought back a most painful reminder. The baroness showed a haughty and scornful indulgence when her husband became enamored of Esther van Gobseck.
[Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] Forgetting her origin she dreamed of seeing her daughter Augusta become Duchesse d'Herouville; but the Herouvilles, knowing the muddy source of Nucingen's millions, declined this alliance. [Modeste Mignon. The Firm of Nucingen.] Shortly after the year 1830, the baroness was invited to the house of Felicite des Touches, where she saw Marsay once more, and heard him give an account of an old love-affair. [Another Study of woman.] Delphine aided Marie de Vandenesse and Nathan to the extent of forty thousand francs during the checkered course of their intrigues. She remembered indeed having gone through similar experiences. [A Daughter of Eve.] About the middle of the monarchy of July, Madame de Nucingen, as mother-in-law of Eugene de Rastignac, visited Madame d'Espard and met Maxime de Trailles and Ferdinand du Tillet in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. [The Member for Arcis.]
NUEIL (De), proprietor of the domain of the Manervilles, which, doubtless, descended to the younger son, Gaston. [The Deserted Woman.]
NUEIL (Madame de), wife of the preceding, survived her husband, and her eldest son, became the dowager Comtesse de Nueil, and afterwards owned the domain of Manerville, to which she withdrew in retirement.
She was the type of the scheming mother, careful and correct, but worldly. She matched off Gaston, and was thereby involuntarily the cause of his death. [The Deserted Woman.]
NUEIL (De), eldest son of the preceding, died of consumption in the reign of Louis XVIII., leaving the title of Comte de Nueil to his younger brother, Baron Gaston. [The Deserted Woman.]
NUEIL (Gaston de), son of the Nueils and brother of the preceding, born about 1799, of good extraction and with fortune suitable to his rank. He went, in 1822, to Bayeux, where he had family connections, in order to recuperate from the wearing fatigues of Parisian life; had an opportunity to force open the closed door of Claire de Beauseant, who had been living in retirement in that vicinity ever since the marriage of Miguel d'Ajuda-Pinto to Berthe de Rochefide; he fell in love with her, his love was reciprocated, and for nearly ten years he lived with her as her husband in Normandie and Switzerland. Albert Savarus, in his autobiographical novel, "L'Ambitieux par Amour," made a vague reference to them as living together on the shore of Lake Geneva.
After the Revolution of 1830, Gaston de Nueil, already rich from his Norman estates that afforded an income of eighteen thousand francs, married Mademoiselle Stephanie de la Rodiere. Wearying of the marriage tie, he wished to renew his former relations with Madame de Beauseant.
Exasperated by the haughty repulse at the hands of his former mistress, Nueil killed himself. [The Deserted Woman. Albert Savarus.]
NUEIL (Madame Gaston de), born Stephanie de la Rodiere, about 1812, a very insignificant character, married, at the beginning of Louis Philippe's reign, Gaston de Nueil, to whom she brought an income of forty thousand francs a year. She was enceinte after the first month of her marriage. Having become Countess de Nueil, by succession, upon the death of her brother-in-law, and being deserted by Gaston, she continued to live in Normandie. Madame Gaston de Nueil survived her husband. [The Deserted Woman.]
