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Repertory of the Comedie Humaine-2 [96]

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thanks to the kind offices of Madame Roguin, whom he knew in his society life. The marriage was not a happy one; the daughter of the Guillaumes adored Sommervieux without understanding him. The painter often neglected his rooms on the rue des Trois-Freres (now a part of the rue Taitbout) and transferred his homage to the Marechale de Carigliano. He had an income of twelve thousand francs; before the Revolution his father was called the Chevalier de Sommervieux. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.] Theodore de Sommervieux designed a monstrance for Gohier, the king's goldsmith; this monstrance was bought by Madame Baudoyer and given to the church of Saint-Paul, at the time of the death of F. de la Billardiere, head clerk of the administration, whose position she desired for her husband. [The Government Clerks.] Sommervieux also drew vignettes for the works of Canalis. [Modeste Mignon.]

SOMMERVIEUX (Madame Theodore de), wife of the preceding, born Augustine Guillaume, about 1792, second daughter of the Guillaumes of the Cat and Racket (a drapery establishment on the rue Saint-Denis, Paris), had a sad life that was soon wrecked; for, with the exception of Madame Roguin, her family never understood her aspirations to a higher ideal, or the feeling that prompted her to choose Theodore de Sommervieux. Mademoiselle Guillaume was married about the middle of the Empire, at her parish church, Saint-Leu, on the same day that her sister was married to Lebas, the clerk, and immediately after the ceremony referred to. A little less coarse in her feelings than her parents and their associates, but insignificant enough at best, without being aware of it she displeased the painter, and chilled the enthusiasm of her husband's studio friends, Schinner, Bridau, Bixiou, and Lora. Grassou, who was very much of a countryman, was the only one that refrained from laughing at her. Worn out at last, she tried to win back the heart that had become the possession of Madame de Carigliano; she even went to consult her rival, but could not use the weapons supplied her by the coquettish wife of the marshal, and died of a broken heart shortly after the famous ball given by Cesar Birotteau, to which she was invited. She was buried in Montmartre cemetery. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket. Cesar Birotteau.]

SONET, marble-worker and contractor for tombstones, at Paris, during the Restoraton and Louis Philippe's reign. When Pons died, the marble- worker sent his agent to Schmucke to solicit an order for statues of Art and Friendship grouped together. Sonet had the draughtsman Vitelot as partner. The firm name was Sonet & Co. [Cousin Pons.]

SONET (Madame), wife of the preceding, knew how to lavish attentions no less zealous than selfish on W. Schmucke, when he returned, broken- hearted, from Pere-Lachaise, in April, 1845, and suggested to him, with some modifications however, to take certain allegorical monuments which the families of Marsay and Keller had formerly refused, preferring to apply to a genuine artist, the sculptor Stidmann. [Cousin Pons.]

SOPHIE, rival, namesake and contemporary of the famous Sophie, Doctor Veron's "blue ribbon," about 1844, was cook to the Comte Popinot on the rue Basse-du-Rempart, Paris. She must have been a remarkable culinary artist, for Sylvain Pons, reduced, in consequence of breaking with the Camusots, to dining at home, on the rue de Normandie, every day, often exclaimed in fits of melancholy, "O Sophie!" [Cousin Pons.]

SORBIER, a Parisian notary, to whom Chesnel (Choisnel) wrote, in 1822, from Normandie, to commend to his care the rattle-brained Victurnien d'Esgrignon. Unfortunately Sorbier was dead, and the letter was sent to his widow. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

SORBIER (Madame), wife of the preceding, mentioned in Chesnel's (or Choisnel's) letter of 1822, concerning Victurnien d'Esgrignon. She scarcely read the note, and simply sent it to her deceased husband's successor, Maitre Cardot. Thus the widow unwittingly served M. du Bousquier (du Croisier), the enemy of the D'Esgrignons. [Jealousies of
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