RAGOULLEAU[*] (Jean-Antoine), a Parisian lawyer, whose signature the widow Morin tried to extort. She also attempted his assassination, and was condemned, January 11, 1812, on the evidence of a number of witnesses, among others that of Poiret, to twenty years of hard labor.
[Father Goriot.]
[*] The real spelling of the name, as shown by some authentic papers, is Ragouleau.
RAGUET, working boy in the establishment of Cesar Birotteau, the perfumer, in 1818. [Cesar Birotteau.]
RAPARLIER, a Douai notary; drew up marriage contracts in 1825 for Marguerite Claes and Emmanuel de Solis, for Felicie Claes and Pierquin the notary, and for Gabriel Claes and Mademoiselle Conyncks. [The Quest for the Absolute.]
RAPARLIER, a Douai auctioneer, under the Restoration; nephew of the preceding; took an inventory at the Claes house after the death of Madame Balthazar Claes in 1816. [The Quest of the Absolute.]
RAPP, French general, born at Colmar in 1772; died in 1821. As aide-de-camp of the First Consul, Bonaparte, he found himself one day in October serving near his chief at the Tuileries, when the proscribed Corsican, Bartolomeo de Piombo, came up rather unexpectedly. Rapp, who was suspicious of this man, as he was of all Corsicians, wished to stay at Bonaparte's side during the interview, but the Consul good-naturedly sent him away. [The Vendetta.] On October 13, 1806, the day before the battle of Jena, Rapp had just made an important report to the Emperor at the moment when Napoleon was receiving on the next day's battlefield Mademoiselle Laurence de Cinq-Cygne and M. de Chargeboeuf, who had come from France to ask for the pardon of the two Hauteserres and the two Simeuses, people affected by the political suit and condemned to hard labor. [The Gondreville Mystery.]
RAQUETS (Des), lived at Douai, of Flemish descent, and devoted to the traditions and customs of his province; very wealthy uncle of the notary Pierquin, his only heir, who received his inheritance towards the close of the Restoration. [The Quest of the Absolute.]
RASTIGNAC (Chevalier de), great-uncle of Eugene de Rastignac; as vice-admiral was commander of the "Vengeur" before 1789, and lost his entire fortune in the service of the king, as the revolutionary government did not wish to satisfy his demands in the adjusting of the Compagnie des Indes affairs. [Father Goriot.]
RASTIGNAC (Baron and Baronne de) had, near Ruffec, Charente, an estate, where they lived in the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, and where were born to them five children: Eugene, Laure-Rose, Agathe, Gabriel and Henri. They were poor, and lived in close retirement, keeping a dignified silence, and like their neighbours, the Marquis and Marquise de Pimentel, exercised, through their connection with court circles, a strong influence over the entire province, being invited at various times to the home of Madame de Bargeton, at Angouleme, where they met Lucien de Rubempre and were able to understand him. [Father Goriot. Lost Illusions.]
RASTIGNAC (Eugene de),[*] eldest son of the Baron and Baronne de Rastignac, born at Rastignac near Ruffec in 1797. He came to Paris in 1819 to study law; lived at first on the third floor of the Vauquer lodging-house, rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, having then some association with Jacques Collin, called Vautrin, who was especially interested in him and wanted him to marry Victorine Taillefer.
Rastignac became the lover of Madame de Nucingen, second daughter of Joachim Goriot, an old vermicelli-maker, and in February, 1820, lived on rue d'Artois in pretty apartments, rented and furnished by the father of his mistress. Goriot died in his arms. The servant, Christophe, and Rastignac were the only attendants in the good man's funeral procession. At the Vauquer lodging-house he was intimate with Horace Bianchon, a medical student. [Father Goriot.] In 1821, at the Opera, young Rastignac made fun for the occupants of two boxes over the provincialisms of Madame de Bargeton and Lucien de Rubempre, "young Chardon." This led Madame d'Espard to leave the theatre with her relative, thus publicly and in a cowardly way abandoning the distinguished provincial. Some months later Rastignac sought the favor of this same Lucien de Rubempre, who was by that time an influential citizen. He agreed to act with Marsay as the poet's witness in the duel which he fought with Michel Chrestien, in regard to Daniel d'Arthez. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.] At the last masquerade ball of 1824 Rastignac found Rubempre, who had disappeared from Paris some time before. Vautrin, recalling his memories of the Vauquer lodging-house, urged him authoritatively to treat Lucien as a friend. Shortly after, Rastignac became a frequenter of the sumptuous mansion furnished by Nucingen for Esther van Gobseck on rue Saint-
Georges. Rastignac was present at Lucien de Rubempre's funeral in May, 1830. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] About the same time the Comte de Fontaine asked his daughter Emilie what she thought of Rastignac--among several others--as a possible husband for her. But knowing the relations of this youthful aspirant with Madame de Nucingen, she saved herself by replying maliciously. [The Ball at Sceaux.] In 1828
