VERNOU (Madame Felicien), wife of the preceding, whose vulgarity was one of the causes of her husband’s bitterness, revealed herself in her true light to Lucien de Rubempre, when she mentioned a certain Madame Mahoudeau as one of her friends. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]

VERT (Michel-Jean-Jerome), nick-named Vermichel, formerly violinist in the Bourgogne regiment, was occupied, during the Restoration, with the various callings of fiddler, door-keeper of the Hotel de Ville, drum-beater of Soulanges, jailer of the local prison, and finally bailiff’s deputy in the service of Brunet.  He was intimate friend of Fourchon, with whom he was in the habit of getting on sprees, and whose hatred for the Montcornets, owners of Aigues, he shared. [The Peasantry.]

VERT (Madame Michel), wife of the preceding, commonly called Vermichel, as was the case with her husband; a mustached virago, a metre in width, and of two hundred and forty pounds weight, but active in spite of this; she ruled her husband absolutely. [The Peasantry.]

VERVELLE (Antenor), an eccentric bourgeois of Paris, made his fortune in the cork business.  Retiring from the trade, Vervelle became, in his own way, an amateur artist; wished to form a gallery of paintings, and believed that he was collecting Flemish specimens, works of Tenier, Metzu, and Rembrandt; employed Elie Magus to form the collection, and, with that Jew as go-between, married his daughter Virginie to Pierre Grassou.  Vervelle, at that time, was living in a house of his own on the rue Boucherat, a part of the rue Saint-Louis (now rue de Turenne), near the rue Charlot.  He also owned a cottage at Ville-d’Avray, in which the famous Flemish collection was stored—­pictures really painted by Pierre Grassou. [Pierre Grassou.]

VERVELLE (Madame Antenor), wife of the preceding, gladly accepted Pierre Grassou for a son-in-law, as soon as she found out that Maitre Cardot was his notary.  Madame Vervelle, however, was horrified at the idea of Joseph Bridau’s bursting in Pierre’s studio, and “touching up” the portrait of Mademoiselle Virginie, afterwards Madame Grassou. [Pierre Grassou.]

VERVELLE (Virginie). (See Grassou, Madame Pierre.)

VEZE (Abbe de), a priest of Mortagne, during the Empire, administered the last sacrament to Madame Bryond des Tours-Minieres just before her execution in 1810; he was afterwards one of the Brothers of Consolation, installed in the home of the Baronne de la Chanterie on the rue Chanoinesse, Paris. [The Seamy Side of History.]

VIALLET, an excellent gendarme, appointed brigadier at Soulanges, Bourgogne; replaced Soudry, retired. [The Peasantry.]

VICTOIRE, in 1819, a servant of Charles Claparon, a banker on the rue de Provence, Paris; “a real Leonarde bedizened like a fish-huckster.” [Cesar Birotteau.]