Simonian doctrine, when M. Grossetete prevailed upon him to take charge of some important works on the estate of Mme. Pierre Graslin in Haute-Vienne. Gerard wrought wonders aided by Fresquin and other capable men. He became mayor of Montegnac in 1838. Mme. Graslin died about 1844. Gerard followed out her final wishes, and lived with her children, assuming guardianship of Francis Graslin. Three months later, again furthering the desires of the deceased, Gerard married a native girl, Denise Tascheron, the sister of a man who had been executed in 1829. [The Country Parson.]
GERARD (Madame Gregoire), wife of foregoing, born Denise Tascheron, of Montegnac, Limousin; youngest child of a rather large family. She lavished her sisterly affection on her brother, the condemned Tasheron, visiting him in prison and softening his savage nature. With the aid of another brother, Louis-Marie, she made away with certain compromising clues of her eldest brother's crime, and restored the stolen money, afterwards she emigrated to America, where she became wealthy. Becoming homesick she returned to Montegnac, fifteen years later, where she recognized Francis Graslin, her brother's natural son, and became a second mother to him when she married the engineer, Gerard. This marriage of a Protestant with a Catholic took place in 1844. "In grace, modesty, piety and beauty, Mme. Gerard resembled the heroine of 'Edinburgh Prison.' " [The Country Parson.]
GERARD (Madame), widow, poor but honest, mother of several grown-up daughters; kept a furnished hotel on rue Louis-le-Grand, Paris, about the end of the Restoration. Being under obligations to Suzanne du Val-
Noble--Mme. Theodore Gaillard--she sheltered her when the courtesan was driven away from a fine apartment on rue Saint-Georges, following the ruin and flight of her lover, Jacques Falleix, the stockbroker.
Mme. Gerard was not related to the other Gerards mentioned above.
[Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]
GIARDINI, Neapolitan cook somewhat aged. He and his wife ran a restaurant in rue Froidmanteau, Paris, in 1830-31. He had established, so he said, three restaurants in Italy: at Naples, Parma and Rome. In the first years of Louis Philippe's reign, his peculiar cookery was the fare of Paolo Gambara. In 1837 this crank on the subject of special dishes had fallen to the calling of broken food huckster on rue Froidmanteau. [Gambara.]
GIBOULARD (Gatienne), a very pretty daughter of a wealthy carpenter of Auxerre; vainly desired, about 1823, by Sarcus for wife, but his father, Sarcus the Rich, would not consent. Later the social set of Mme. Soudry, the leading one of a neighboring village, dreamed for a moment of avenging themselves on the people of Aigues by winning over Gatienne Giboulard. She could have embroiled M. and Mme. Montcornet, and perhaps even compromised Abbe Brossette. [The Peasantry.]
GIGELMI, Italian orchestra conductor, living in Paris with the Gambaras. After the Revolution of 1830, he dined at Giardini's on rue Froidmanteau. [Gambara.]
GIGONNET. (See Bidault.]
GIGUET (Colonel), native probably of Arcis-sur-Aube, where he lived after retirement. One of Mme. Marion's brothers. One of the most highly esteemed officers of the Grand Army. Had a fine sense of honor; was for eleven years merely captain of artillery; chief of battalion in 1813; major in 1814. On account of devotion to Napoleon he refused to serve the Bourbons after the first abdication; and he gave such proofs of his fidelity in 1815, that he would have been exiled had it not been for the Comte de Gondreville, who obtained for him retirement on half-pay with the rank of colonel. About 1806 he married one of the daughters of a wealthy Hamburg banker, who gave him three children and died in 1814. Between 1818 and 1825 Giguet lost the two younger children, a son named Simon alone surviving. A Bonapartist and Liberal, the colonel was, during the Restoration, president of the committee at Arcis, where he came in touch with Grevin, Beauvisage and Varlet, notables of the same stamp. He abandoned active politics after his ideas triumphed, and, during the reign of Louis Philippe, he became a noted horticulturist, the creator of the famous Giguet rose.
Nevertheless the colonel continued to be the god of his sister's very influential salon where he appeared at the time of the legislative elections of 1839. In the first part of May of that year the little old man, wonderfully preserved, presided over an electoral convention at Frappart's, the candidates in the field being his own son, Simon Giguet, Phileas Beauvisage, and Sallenauve-Dorlange. [The Member for Arcis.]
GIGUET (Colonel), brother of the preceding and of Mme. Marion; was brigadier of gendarmes at Arcis-sur-Aube in 1803; promoted to a lieutenancy in 1806. As brigadier Giguet was one of the most experienced men in the service. The commandant of Troyes mentioned him especially to the two Parisian detectives, Peyrade and Corentin, entrusted with watching the actions of the Simeuses and the Hauteserres which resulted in the ruin of these young Royalists on account of the pretended seizure of Gondreville. However, an adroit manoeuvre on the part of Francois Michu at first prevented Brigadier Giguet from seizing these conspirators whom he had tracked to earth.
After his promotion to lieutenant he succeeded in arresting them. He finally became colonel of the gendarmes of Troyes, whither Mme.
Marion, then Mlle. Giguet, went with him. He died before his brother and sister, and made her his heir. [The Gondreville Mystery. The Member for Arcis.]
