SCHWAB (Madame Wilhelm), wife of the preceding; born Mademoiselle Emilie Graff; an accomplished beauty, niece of Wolfgang Graff, the wealthy tailor, who provided her with dowry. [Cousin Pons.]
SCIO (Madame), a prominent singer of the Theatre Feydeau in 1798, was very beautiful in "Les Peruviens," a comic opera by Mongenod, produced with very indifferent success. [The Seamy Side of History.]
SCOEVOLA (Mucius). Under this assumed name was concealed, during the Terror, a man who had been huntsman to the Prince de Conti, to whom he owed his fortune. A plasterer, and proprietor of a small house in Paris, on about the highest point of the Faubourg Saint-Martin,[*] near the rue d'Allemagne, he affected an exaggerated civism, which masked an unfailing fidelity to the Bourbons, and he in some mysterious way afforded protection to Sisters Marthe and Agathe (Mesdemoiselles de Beauseant and de Langeais), nuns who had escaped from the Abbey of Chelles, and were, with Abbe de Marolles, taking refuge under his roof. [An Episode under the Terror.]
[*] His parish was the Saint-Laurent church, which for a while during the Revolution had the name of Temple of Fidelity.
SECHARD (Jerome-Nicolas), born in 1743. After having been a workman in a printer's shop of Angouleme situated on the Place du Murier, though very illiterate, he became its owner at the beginning of the Revolution; was acquainted at that time with the Marquis de Maucombe, married a woman that was provided with a certain competency, but soon lost her, after having by her a son, David. In the reign of Louis XVIII., fearing the competition of Cointet, J.-N. Sechard retired from active life, selling his business to his son, whom he intentionally deceived in the trade, and moved to Marsac, near Angouleme, where he raised grapes, and drank to excess. During all the latter part of his life, Sechard mercilessly aggravated the commercial difficulties which his son David was struggling against. The old miser died about 1829, leaving property of some value. [Lost Illusions.]
SECHARD (David), only son of the preceding, school-mate and friend of Lucien de Rubempre, learned the art of printing from the Didots of Paris. On one occasion, upon his return to his native soil, he gave many evidences of his kindness and delicacy; having purchased his father's printing shop, he allowed himself to be deliberately cheated and duped by him; employed as proof-reader Lucien de Rubempre, whose sister, Eve Chardon, he adored with a passion that was fully reciprocated; he married her in spite of the poverty of both parties, for his business was on the decline. The expense involved, the competition of the Cointets, and especially his experiments as inventor in the hope of finding the secret of a particular way of making paper, reduced him to very straitened circumstances. Indeed, everything combined to destroy Sechard; the cunning and power of the Cointet house, the spying of the ungrateful Cerizet, formerly his apprentice, the disorderly life of Lucien de Rubempre, and the jealous greed of his father. A victim of the wiles of Cointet, Sechard abandoned his discovery, resigned himself to his fate, inherited from his father, and cheered by the devotion of the Kolbs, dwelt in Marsac, where Derville, led by Corentin, hunted him out with a view to gaining information as to the origin of Lucien de Rubempre's million. [Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]
SECHARD (Madame David), wife of the preceding, born Eve Chardon in 1804, daughter of a druggist of L'Houmeau (a suburb of Angouleme), and a member of the house of Rubempre; worked first at the house of Madame Prieur, a laundress, for the consideration of fifteen sous a day; manifested great devotion to her brother Lucien, and on marrying David Sechard, in 1821, transferred her devotion to him; having undertaken to manage the printing shop, she competed with Cerizet, Cointet, and Petit-Claud, and almost succeeded in softening Jerome-Nicolas Sechard.
Madame Sechard shared with her husband the inheritance of old J.-N.
Sechard, and was then the modest chatelaine of La Verberie, at Marsac.
By her husband she had at least one child, named Lucien. Madame Sechard was tall and of dark complexion, with blue eyes. [Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]
SECHARD (Lucien), son of the preceding couple. [Lost Illusions.]
SEGAUD, solicitor at Angouleme, was successor to Petit-Claud, a magistrate about 1824. [Lost Illusions.]
SELERIER, called the Auvergnat, Pere Ralleau, Le Rouleur, and especially Fil-de Soie, belonged to the aristocracy of the galleys, and was a member of the group of "Ten Thousand," whose chief was Jacques Collin; the latter, however, suspected him of having sold him to the police, about 1819, when Bibi-Lupin arrested him at the Vauquer boarding-house. [Father Goriot.] In his business Selerier always avoided bloodshed. He was of philosophical turn, very selfish, incapable of love, and ignorant of the meaning of friendship. In May, 1830, when being a prisoner at the Conciergerie, and about to be condemned to fifteen years of forced labor, he saw and recognized Jacques Collin, the pseudo-Carlos Herrera, himself incriminated.
[Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]
SENONCHES (Jacques de), a noble of Angouleme, a great huntsman, stiff and haughty, a sort of wild boar; lived on very good terms with his wife's lover, Francois du Hautoy, and attended Madame de Bargeton's receptions. [Lost Illusions.]
SENONCHES (Madame Jacques de), wife of the preceding, bore the given name of Zephirine, which was abbreviated to Zizine. By Francois du Hautoy, her adored lover, she had a daughter, Francoise de la Haye, who was presented as her ward, and who became Madame Petit-Claud.
[Lost Illusions.]
