After the fall of the Second Empire, he returned to Paris, despite the sentence he had incurred.  Some complicated intrigue must have been at work, for not only did he obtain a pardon, but once more took part in promoting large undertakings, with a finger in every pie and a share of every bribe.  In 1872 he was actively engaged in journalism, having been appointed Director of the Epoque, a Republican journal which made a great success by publishing the papers found in the Tuileries.  Covetous of his son’s fortune, he hastened a disease from which Maxime suffered, by encouraging him in vicious courses, and in the end got possession of the whole estate.  By a singular irony, Aristide, now returned to his original Republicanism, was in a position to protect his brother Eugene, whom in earlier days he had so often compromised.  Le Docteur Pascal.

ROUGON (MADAME ANGELE), first wife of the preceding, was a daughter of commander Sicardot.  She brought her husband a dowry of ten thousand francs.  La Fortune des Rougon.

Along with her daughter Clotilde, she accompanied her husband to Paris in 1852, and being an amiable woman without ambition she was quite satisfied with the modest position he at first secured.  She died in 1854 of inflammation of the lungs.  La Curee.

ROUGON, alias SACCARD (MADAME RENEE), the second wife of Aristide Rougon, alias Saccard, was the elder daughter of M. Beraud du Chatel, the last representative of an old middle-class family.  Having become seriously compromised, she was hurriedly married to Saccard through the agency of his sister Madame Sidonie, and a considerable sum of money as well as land was settled upon her.  Wholly given over to pleasure and extravagance, she soon got deeply into debt, and her husband took advantage of this from time to time by inducing her to make over to him her property, in order that he might speculate with it.  She engaged in a shameful liaison with her husband’s son Maxime, which ultimately brought her great unhappiness, and she died of acute meningitis at an early age.  La Curee.

ROUGON (CHARLES), born 1857, son of Maxime Rougon, alias Saccard, and of Justine Megot, a maid-servant of Madame Renee Saccard.  The child and his mother were sent to the country with a little annuity of twelve hundred francs.  La Curee.

At fifteen years of age he lived at Plassans with his mother, who had married a saddler named Anselme Thomas.  Charles was a degenerate who reproduced at a distance of three generations his great-great-grandmother, Adelaide Fouque.  He did not look more than twelve years old, and his intelligence was that of a child of five.  There was in him a relaxation of tissues, due to degeneracy, and the slightest exertion produced hemorrhage.  Charles was not kindly treated by his stepfather, and generally lived with his great-grandmother Felicite Rougon.  He was frequently taken to visit the aged Adelaide Fouque in the asylum at Les Tulettes, and on one occasion, in 1873, when he chanced to be left alone with her he was seized with bleeding at the nose, and, under the fixed eyes of his ancestress, he slowly bled to death.  Le Docteur Pascal.