VIMEUX (Adolphe), son of the preceding, in 1824, was copyist emeritus in Xavier Rabourdin's bureau in the Finance Department. A great dandy, he thought only of his dress, and was satisfied with meagre fare at the Katcomb's restaurant; he became a debtor of Antoine, the messenger boy; secretly his ambition was to marry a rich old lady. [The Government Clerks.]
VINET had a painful career to start with; a disappointment crossed his path at the very outset. He had seduced a Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf, and he supposed that her parents would acknowledge him as son-in-law, and endow their daughter richly; so he married her, but her family disowned her, and he therefore had to rely on himself entirely. As an attorney at Provins, Vinet made his mark by degrees; as head of the local opposition, with the aid of Goraud, he succeeded in making use of Denis Rogron, a wealthy retired merchant, established the "Courrier de Provins," a Liberalist paper, adroitly defended the Rogrons against the charge of killing Pierrette Lorrain by slow degrees, was elected to the Chamber of Deputies about 1830, and became also attorney-general, and probably minister of justice. [Pierrette. The Member for Arcis. The Middle Classes. Cousin Pons.]
VINET (Madame), wife of the preceding, born Chargeboeuf, and therefore one of the descendants of the "noble family of La Brie, a name derived from the exploit of a knight in the expedition of Saint-Louis," was mother of two children, who suffered for her happiness. Absolutely controlled by her husband, rejected and sacrificed by her family from the time of her marriage, Madame Vinet scarcely dared in the Rogrons' salon to speak in defence of Pierrette Lorrain, their victim.
[Pierrette.]
VINET (Olivier), son of the preceding couple, born in 1816. A magistrate, like his father, began his career as deputy king's attorney at Arcis, advanced to the position of king's attorney in the town of Mantes, and, still further, was deputy king's attorney, but now in Paris. Supported by his father's influence, and being noted for his independent raillery, Vinet was dreaded everywhere. Among the people of Arcis, he mixed only with the little coterie of government officials, composed of Goulard, Michu, and Marest. [The Member for Arcis.] Being a rival of Maitre Fraisier in the affections of Madame Vatinelle of Mantes, he resolved to destroy this contestant in the race, and so thwarted his career. [Cousin Pons.] At the Thuilliers', on the rue Saint-Dominique-d'Enfer, Paris, where he displayed his usual impertinence, Vinet was an aspirant to the hand of Celeste Colleville, the heiress, who was eventually Madame Felix Phellion.
[The Middle Classes.]
VIOLETTE, a husbandman, tenanted in the department of Aube, near Arcis, the Grouage farm, that was a part of the Gondreville estate, at the time that Peyrade and Corentin, in accordance with Fouche's instructions, undertook the singular abduction of Senator Malin de Gondreville. A miserly and deceitful man, this fellow Violette secretly aided with Malin de Gondreville and the powers of the day against Michu, the mysterious agent of the Cinq-Cygne, Hauteserre, and Simeuse families. [The Gondreville Mystery.]
VIOLETTE (Jean), a descendant of the preceding; hosier of Arcis in 1837; took in hand Pigoult's business, as successor to Phileas Beauvisage. In the electoral stir of 1839, Jean Violette seemed to be entirely at the disposal of the Gondreville faction. [The Member for Arcis.]
VIRGINIE, cook in the household of Cesar Birotteau, the perfumer, in 1818. [Cesar Birotteau.]
VIRGINIE, during the years 1835-1836, lady's maid, on the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins (at present rue des Mathurins), Paris, to Marie-Eugenie du Tillet, who was at that time engrossed in righting the imprudent conduct of Angelique-Marie de Vandenesse. [A Daughter of Eve.]
VIRGINIE, mistress of a Provencal soldier, who, at a later period, during Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt, was lost for some time in a desert, where he lived with a female panther. The jealous mistress was constantly threatening to stab her lover, and he dubbed her Mignonne, by antiphrasis; in memory of her he gave the same name to the panther.
[A Passion in the Desert.]
VIRGINIE, a Parisian milliner, whose hats were praised, for a consideration, by Andoche Finot in his newspaper in 1821. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]
VIRLAZ, a rich furrier of Leipsic, from whom his nephew, Frederic Brunner, inherited, about the middle of Louis-Philippe's reign. In his lifetime this Jew, head of the house of Virlaz & Co., had the fortune of Madame Brunner (first of the name) placed in the coffers of the Al-
Sartchild bank. [Cousin Pons.]
