BRIDAU (Agathe Rouget, Madame), wife of the preceding; born in 1773.  Legal daughter of Dr. Rouget of Issoudun, but possibly the natural daughter of Sub-delegate Lousteau.  The doctor did not waste any affection upon her, and lost no time in sending her to Paris, where she was reared by her uncle, the grocer Descoings.  She died at the close of 1828.  Of her two sons, Philippe and Joseph, Mme. Bridau always preferred the elder, though he caused her nothing but grief. [A Bachelor’s Establishment.]

BRIDAU (Philippe), elder son of Bridau and Agathe Rouget.  Born in 1796.  Placed in the Saint-Cyr school in 1813, he remained but six months, leaving it to become under-lieutenant of the cavalry.  On account of a skirmish of the advance guard he was made full lieutenant, during the French campaign, then captain after the battle of La Fere-Champenoise, where Napoleon made him artillery officer.  He was decorated at Montereau.  After witnessing the farewell at Fontainebleu, he came back to his mother in July, 1814, being then hardly nineteen.  He did not wish to serve the Bourbons.  In March, 1815, Philippe Bridau rejoined the Emperor at Lyons, accompanying him to the Tuileries.  He was promised a captaincy in a squadron of dragoons of the Guard, and made officer of the Legion of Honor at Waterloo.  Reduced to half-pay, during the Restoration, he nevertheless preserved his rank and officer’s cross.  He rejoined General Lallemand in Texas, returning from America in October, 1819, thoroughly degenerated.  He ran an opposition newspaper in Paris in 1820-1821.  He led a most dissolute life; was the lover of Mariette Godeschal; and attended all the parties of Tullia, Florentine, Florine, Coralie, Matifat and Camusot.  Not content with using the income of his brother Joseph, he stole a coffer entrusted to him, and despoiled of her last savings Mme. Descoings, who died of grief.  Involved in a military plot in 1822, he was sent to Issoudun, under the surveillance of the police.  There he created a disturbance in the “bachelor’s establishment” of his uncle, Jean-Jacques Rouget; killed in a duel Maxence Gilet, the lover of Flore Brazier; brought about the girl’s marriage with his uncle; and married her himself when she became a widow in 1824.  When Charles X. succeeded to the throne, Philippe Bridau re-entered the army as lieutenant-colonel of the Duc de Maufrigneuse’s regiment.  In 1827 he passed with this grade into a regiment of cavalry of the Royal Guard, and was made Comte de Brambourg from the name of an estate which he had purchased.  He was promised further the office of commander in the Legion of Honor, as well as in the Order of Saint-Louis.  After having consciously caused the death of his wife, Flore Brazier, he tried to marry Amelie de Soulanges, who belonged to a great family.  But his manoeuvres were frustrated by Bixiou.  The Revolution of 1830 resulted in the loss to Philippe Bridau of a portion of the fortune which he had obtained from his uncle by his marriage.  Once more he entered military service, under the July Government, which made him a colonel.  In 1839 he fell in an engagement with the Arabs in Africa. [A Bachelor’s Establishment.  Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.]