ROUGON (MADAME FELICITE), wife of the preceding, and daughter of Puech, the oil-dealer.  She was married in 1810, and had three sons and two daughters.  A woman of strong ambitions, she hoped to better her social position by the aid of her sons, on whose education she spent large sums.  Disappointed in this hope for many years, she and her husband retired from business with barely sufficient means to keep themselves in comfort.  She, instigated by the Marquis de Carnavant (her putative father), urged her husband to take part in politics, and meetings of the reactionary party were regularly held in her “yellow drawing-room.”  While the success of the Coup d’Etat was in some doubt, she encouraged her husband in maintaining the position he had taken up; and, having ascertained that the success of the Bonapartists was assured she arranged with Antoine Macquart for the attack on the town hall, the repulse of which led to the rise of the family fortunes.  La Fortune des Rougon.

After her husband’s appointment as Receiver of Taxes, she continued her weekly receptions, but endeavoured to give them a non-political character by inviting representatives of all parties.  Her son Eugene, now a Minister of State, kept her advised as to the course she should pursue, and on his instructions she gave some assistance to Abbe Faujas in his political “conquest of Plassans.”  La Conquete de Plassans.

In 1856 she interested herself in a lawsuit raised by M. Charbonnel, a retired oil-merchant of Plassans, and requested her son Eugene, the President of the Council of State, to use his influence on behalf of her friend.  Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

After the disasters of the war, Plassans escaped from her dominion, and she had to content herself with the role of dethroned queen of the old regime.  Her ruling passion was the defence of the glory of the Rougons, and the obliteration of everything tending to reflect on the family name.  In this connection she welcomed the death of Adelaide Fouque, the common ancestress of the Rougons and the Macquarts, and she did nothing to save her old accomplice Antoine Macquart from the terrible fate which overtook him.  After these events, her only remaining trouble was the work on family heredity which had for years occupied her son Pascal.  Assisted by his servant Martine, she eventually succeeded in burning the whole manuscript to which Pascal had devoted his life.  Her triumph was then secure, and in order to raise a monument to the glory of the family she devoted a large part of her fortune to the erection of an asylum for the aged, to be known as the Rougon Asylum.  At eighty-two years of age, she laid the foundation stone of the building, and in doing so conquered Plassans for the third time.  Le Docteur Pascal.

ROUGON (SIDONIE), born 1818, daughter of Pierre Rougon.  La Fortune des Rougon.