TOURS-MINIERES (Bernard-Polydor Bryond, Baron des), a gentleman of Alencon; born about 1772; in 1793, was one of the most active emissaries of the Comte de Lille (Louis XVIII.), in his conspiracy against the Republic.  Having received the King’s thanks, he retired to his estate in the department of Orne, which had long been burdened with mortgages; and, in 1807, he married Henriette Le Chantre de la Chanterie, with the concurrence of the Royalists, whose “pet” he was.  He pretended to take part in the reactionary revolutionary movement of the West in 1809, implicated his wife in the matter, compromised her, ruined her, and then disappeared.  Returning in secrecy to his country, under the assumed name of Lemarchand, he aided the authorities in getting at the bottom of the plot, and then went to Paris, where he became the celebrated police-agent Contenson. [The Seamy Side of History.] He knew Peyrade, and received from Lenoir’s old pupil the significant sobriquet of “Philosopher.”  Being agent for Fouche during the period of the Empire, he abandoned himself in the most sensual way to his passions, and lived a life of irregularity and vice.  During the time of the Restoration Louchard had him employed by Nucingen at the time of the latter’s amours with Esther van Gobseck.  In the service of this noted banker, Contenson (with Peyrade and Corentin) tried to protect him from the snares of Jacques Collin, and followed the pseudo-Carlos Herrera to his place of refuge on a house-top; but being hurled from the roof by his intended victim, he was instantly killed during the winter of 1829-1830. [Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.]

TOURS-MINIERES (Baronne Bryond des), wife of the preceding; born Henriette Le Chantre de la Chanterie, in 1789; only daughter of Monsieur and Madame Le Chantre de la Chanterie; was married after her father’s death.  Through the machinations of Tours-Minieres she was brought into contact with Charles-Amedee-Louis-Joseph Rifoel, Chevalier du Vissard, became his mistress, and took the field for him in the Royalist cause, in the department of Orne, in 1809.  Betrayed by her husband, she was executed in 1810, in accordance with a death-sentence of the court presided over by Mergi, Bourlac being attorney-general. [The Seamy Side of History.]

TRAILLES (Comte Maxime de), born in 1791, belonged to a family that was descended from an attendant to Louis XI., and raised to the nobility by Francois I. This perfect example of the Parisian condottieri made his beginning in the early part of the nineteenth century as a page to Napoleon.  Being loved, in turn, by Sarah Gobseck and Anastasie de Restaud, Maxime de Trailles, himself already ruined, ruined both of these; gaming was his master passion, and his caprices knew no bounds. [Cesar Birotteau.  Father Goriot.  Gobseck.] He took under his attention the Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere, a novice in Parisian life, whom also he would have served later as his second against Desire Minoret, but for the latter’s