[*] The palace in Venice formerly owned by the Duchesse de Berri and
    the Comte de Chambord, in which Wagner, the musician, died, is
    even now called the Vendramin Palace.  It is on the Grand-Canal,
    quite near the Justiniani Palace (now the Hotel de-l’Europe.)

VERGNIAUD (Louis), who made the Egyptian campaign with Hyacinthe Chabert and Luigi Porta, was quartermaster of hussars when he left the service.  During the Restoration he was, in turn, cow-keeper on the rue du Petit-Banquier, keeper of a livery-stable, and cabman.  As cow-keeper, Vergniaud, having a wife and three sons, being in debt to Grados, and giving too generously to Chabert, ended in insolvency; even then he aided Luigi Porta, again in trouble, and was his witness when that Corsican married Mademoiselle di Piombo.  Louis Vergniaud, being a party to the conspiracies against Louis XVIII., was imprisoned for his share in these crimes. [Colonel Chabert.  The Vendetta.]

VERMANTON, a cynic philosopher, and a habitue of Madame Schontz’s salon, between 1835 and 1840, when she was keeping house with Arthur de Rochefide. [Beatrix.]

VERMICHEL, common nick-name of Vert (Michel-Jean-Jerome.)

VERMUT, a druggist of Soulanges, in Bourgogne, during the Restoration; brother-in-law of Sarcus, the Soulanges justice of the peace, who had married his eldest sister.  Though quite a distinguished chemist, Vermut was the object of the pleasantries and contemptuous remarks of the Soudry salon, especially at the hands of the Gourdons.  Despite the slight esteem “of the first society of Soulanges,” Vermut gave evidence of ability, when he disturbed Madame Pigeron by finding traces of poison in the body of her dead husband. [The Peasantry.]

VERMUT (Madame), wife of the preceding; life and soul of the salon of Madame Soudry, who, however, declared that she was “bad form,” and reproached her for flirting with Gourdon, author of “La Bilboqueide.” [The Peasantry.]

VERNAL (Abbe), one of the four Vendean leaders, in 1799, when Montauran was opposing Hulot, the other three being Chatillon, Suzannet, and the Comte de Fontaine. [The Chouans.]

VERNET (Joseph), born in 1714, died in 1789, a famous French artist; patronized the Cat and Racket, a drapery establishment on the rue Saint-Denis, of which M. Guillaume, father-in-law of Sommervieux, was proprietor. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.]

VERNEUIL (Marquis de), member of a historic family, and probably an ancestor of the Verneuils of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  In 1591, he was on intimate terms, with the Norman Comte d’Herouville, ancestor of the keeper of Josepha Mirah, star of the Royal Academy of Music, about 1838.  The relations between the two families continued unbroken through the centuries. [The Hated Son.]

VERNEUIL (Victor-Amedee, Duc de), probably descended from the preceding, died before the Revolution; by Mademoiselle Blanche de Casteran, he had a daughter, Marie-Nathalie—­afterwards Madame Alphonse de Montauran.  He acknowledged his natural daughter at the close of his life, and almost disinherited his legitimate son in her favor. [The Chouans.]