POPINOT-CHANDIER (Madame and Mademoiselle), mother and daughter; of the family of Madame Boirouge; hailing from Sancerre; frequent visitors of Madame de la Baudraye, whose superiority of manner they ridiculed in genuine bourgeois fashion. [The Muse of the Department.]
PORCHON. (See Vidal.)
PORRABERIL (Euphemie). (See San-Real, Marquise de.)
PORRIQUET, an elderly student of the classics, was teacher of Raphael de Valentin, whom he had as a pupil in the sixth class, in the third class, and in rhetoric. Retired from the university without a pension after the Revolution of July, on suspicion of Carlism, seventy years of age, without means, and with a nephew whose expenses he was paying at the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, he went to solicit the aid of his dear "foster-child," to obtain the position of principal of a provincial school, and suffered rough treatment at the hands of the /carus alumnus/, every act of whose shortened Valentin's existence.
[The Magic Skin.]
PORTA (Luigi), born in 1793, strikingly like his sister Nina. He was the last member that remained, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, of the Corsican family of Porta, by reason of a bloody vendetta between his kinspeople and the Piombos. Luigi Porta alone was saved, by Elisa Vanni, according to Giacomo; he lived at Genoa, where he enlisted, and found himself, when quite young, in the affair of the Beresina. Under the Restoration he was already an officer of high rank; he put an end to his military career and was hunted by the authorities at the same time as Labedoyere. Luiga Porta found Paris a safe place of refuge. Servin, the Bonapartist painter, who had opened a studio of drawing, where he taught his art to young ladies, concealed the officer. One of his pupils, Ginevra di Piombo, discovered the outlaw's hiding-place, aided him, fell in love with him, made him fall in love with her, and married him, despite the opposition of her father, Bartolomeo di Piombo. Luigi Porta chose as a witness, when he was married, his former comrade, Louis Vergniaud, also known to Hyacinthe Chabert. He lived from hand to mouth by doing secretary's work, lost his wife, and, crushed by poverty, went to tell the Piombos of her death. He died almost immediately after her (1820).
[The Vendetta.]
PORTA (Madame Luigi), wife of the preceding, born Ginevra di Piombo about 1790; shared, in Corsica as in Paris, the stormy life of her father and mother, whose adored child she was. In Servin's, the painter's studio, where with her talent she shone above the whole class, Ginevra knew Mesdames Tiphaine and Camusot de Marville, at that time Mesdemoiselles Roguin and Thirion. Defended by Laure alone, she endured the cruelly planned persecution of Amelie Thirion, a Royalist, and an envious woman, especially when the favorite drawing pupil discovered and aided Luigi Porta, whom she married shortly afterwards, against the will of Bartolomeo di Piombo. Madame Porta lived most wretchedly; she resorted to Magus to dispose of copies of paintings at a meagre price; brought a son into the world, Barthelemy; could not nurse him, lost him, and died of grief and exhaustion in the year 1820. [The Vendetta.]
PORTAIL (Du), name assumed by Corentin, when as "prefect of secret police of diplomacy and political affairs," he lived on the rue Honore-Chevalier, in the reign of Louis Philippe. [The Government Clerks.]
PORTENDUERE (Comte Luc-Savinien de), grandson of Admiral de Portenduere, born about 1788, represented the elder branch of the Portendueres, of whom Madame de Portenduere and her son Savinien represented the younger branch. Under the Restoration, being the husband of a rich wife, the father of three children and member for Isere, he lived, according to the season of the year, in the chateau of Portenduere or the Portenduere mansion, which were situated, the one in Dauphine, and the other in Paris, and extended no aid to the Vicomte Savinien, though he was harassed by his creditors. [Ursule Mirouet.]
PORTENDUERE (Madame de,) born Kergarouet, a Breton, proud of her noble descent and of her race. She married a post-captain, nephew of the famous Admiral de Portenduere, the rival of the Suffrens, the Kergarouets, and the Simeuses; bore him a son, Savinien; she survived her husband; was on intimate terms with the Rouvres, her country neighbors; for, having but little means, she lived, during the Restoration, in the little village of Nemours, on the rue des Bourgeois, where Denis Minoret was domiciled. Savinien's prodigal dissipation and the long opposition to his marriage to Ursule Mirouet saddened, or at least distrubed, Madame de Portenduere's last days.
[Ursule Mirouet.]
PORTENDUERE (Vicomte Savinien de), son of preceding, born in 1806; cousin of the Comte de Portenduere, who was descended from the famous admiral of this name, and great nephew of Vice-Admiral Kergarouet.
During the Restoration he left the little town of Nemours and his mother's society to go and try the life in Paris, where, in spite of his relationship with the Fontaines, he fell in love with Emilie de Fontaine, who did not reciprocate his love, but married first Admiral de Kergarouet, and afterwards the Marquis de Vandenesse. [The Ball at Sceaux.] Savinien also became enamored of Leontine de Serizy; was on intimate terms with Marsay, Rastignac, Rubempre, Maxime de Trailles, Blondet and Finot; soon lost a considerable sum of money, and, laden with debts, became a boarder at Sainte-Pelagie; he then received Marsay, Rastignac and Rubempre, the latter wishing to relieve his distress, much to the amusement of Florine, afterwards Madame Nathan.
