REGNAULT, former chief clerk to Maitre Roguin, a Paris notary; came to Vendome in 1816 and purchased there a notaryship. He was called by Madame de Merret to her death-bed, and was made her executor. In this position, some years later, he urged Doctor Bianchon to respect one of the last wishes of the deceased by discontinuing his promenades in the Grande Breteche garden, as she had wished this property to remain entirely unused for half a century. Maitre Regnault married a wealthy cousin of Vendome. Regnault was tall and slender, with sloping forehead, small pointed head and wan complexion. He frequently used the expression, "One moment." [La Grande Breteche.]
REGNIER (Claude-Antoine), Duc de Massa, born in 1746, died 1814; an advocate, and afterwards deputy to the Constituency; was high justice --justice of the peace--during the celebrated trial of the Simeuses and Hauteserres, accused of the abduction of Senator Malin. He noticed the talent displayed by Granville for the defendants, and a little later, having met him at Archchancelor Cambaceres's house, he took the young barrister into his own carriage, setting him down on the Quai des Augustins, at the young man's door, after giving him some practical advice and assuring him of his protection. [The Gondreville Mystery. A Second Home.]
REMONENCQ, an Auvergnat, dealer in old iron, established on rue de Normandie, in the house in which Pons and Schmucke lived, and where the Cibots were porters. Remonencq, who had come to Paris with the intention of being a porter, ran errands between 1825 and 1831 for the dealers in curiosities on Boulevard Beaumarchais and the coppersmiths on rue de Lappe, then opened in this same quarter a small shop for odds and ends. He lived there in sordid economy. He had been in Sylvain Pons's house, and had fully recognized the great value of the aged collector's treasures. His greed urged him to crime, and he instigated Madame Cibot in her theft at the Pons house. After receiving his share of the property, he poisoned the husband of the portress, in order to marry the widow, with whom he established a curiosity shop in an excellent building on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. About 1846 he unwittingly poisoned himself with a glass of vitriol, which he had placed near his wife. [Cousin Pons.]
REMONENCQ (Mademoiselle), sister of the preceding, "a kind of idiot with a vacant stare, dressed like a Japanese idol." She was her brother's house-keeper. [Cousin Pons.]
REMONENCQ (Madame), born in 1796, at one time a beautiful oyster-woman of the "Cadran Bleu" in Paris; married for love the porter-tailor, Cibot, in 1828, and lived with him in the porter's lodge of a house on rue de Normandie, belonging to Claude-Joseph Pillerault. In this house the musicians, Pons and Schmucke, lived. She busied herself for some time with the management of the house and the cooking for these two celibates. At first she was faithful, but finally, moved by Remonencq, and encouraged by Fontaine, the necromancer, she robbed the ill-fated Pons. Her husband having been poisoned, without her knowledge, by Remonencq, she married the second-hand dealer, now a dealer in curiosities, and proprietor of the beautiful shop on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. She survived her second husband. [Cousin Pons.]
REMY (Jean), peasant of Arcis-sur-Aube, against whom a neighbor lost a lawsuit concerning a boundary line. This neighbor, who was given to drink, used strong language in speaking against Jean Remy in a session of the electors who had organized in the interest of Dorlange-
Sallenauve, a candidate, in the month of April, 1839. If we may believe this neighbor, Jean Remy was a wife-beater, and had a daughter who had obtained, through the influence of a deputy, and apparently without any claim, an excellent tobacco-stand on rue Mouffetard. [The Member for Arcis.]
RENARD, former captain in the Imperial army, withdrew to Issoudun during the Restoration; one of the officers in the Faubourg de Rome, who were hostile to the "pekins" and partisans of Maxence (Max) Gilet.
Renard and Commandant Potel were seconds for Maxence in his duel with Philippe Bridau--a duel which resulted in the former's death. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]
RENARD, regimental quartermaster in the cavalry, 1812. Although educated as a notary he became an under officer. He had the face of a girl and was considered a "wheedler." He saved the life of his friend, Genestas, several times, but enticed away from him a Polish Jewess, whom he loved, married in Sarmatian fashion, and left enceinte. When fatally wounded in the battle against the Russians, just before the battle of Lutzen, in his last hours, to Genestas, he acknowledged having betrayed the Jewess, and begged this gentleman to marry her and claim the child, which would soon be born. This was done by the innocent officer. Renard was the son of a Parisian wholesale grocer, a "toothless shark," who would not listen to anything concerning the quartermaster's offspring. [The Country Doctor.]
RENARD (Madame). (See Genestas, Madame.)
RENARD (Adrien). (See Genestas, Adrien.)
RENE, the only servant to M. du Bousquier of Alencon, in 1816; a silly Breton servant, who, although very greedy, was perfectly reliable.
[Jealousies of a Country Town.]
RESTAUD (Comte de), a man whose sad life was first brought to the notice of Barchou de Penhoen, a school-mate of Dufaure and Lambert; born about 1780; husband of Anastasie Goriot, by whom he was ruined; died in December, 1824, while trying to adjust matters favorably for his eldest son, Ernest, the only one of Madame de Restaud's three children whom he recognized as his own. To this end he had pretended that, having been very extravagant, he was greatly in debt to Gobseck.
