NOSWELL (Mistress), a rich and eccentric Englishwoman, who was in Paris at the Hotel Lawson about the middle of Louis Philippe's reign; after much mental debate she bought of Fritot the shawl called Selim, which he said at first it was "impossible" for him to sell. [Gaudissart II.]

NOUASTRE (Baron de), a refugee of the purest noble blood. A ruined man, he returned to Alencon in 1800, with his daughter, who was twenty-two years of age, and found a home with the Marquis d'Esgrignon, and died of grief two months later. Shortly afterwards the marquis married the orphan daughter. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

NOURRISSON (Madame), was formerly, under the Empire, attached to the service of the Prince d'Ysembourg in Paris. The sight of the disorderly life of a "great lady" of the times decided Madame Nourrisson's profession. She set up shop as a dealer in old clothes, and was also known as mistress of various houses of shame. Intimate relations with Jacqueline Collin, continued for more than twenty years, made this two-fold business profitable. The two matrons willingly exchanged, at times, names and business signs, resources and profits. It was in the old clothes shop, on the rue Neuve-Saint-Marc, that Frederic de Nucingen bargained for Esther van Gobseck. Towards the end of Charles X.'s reign, one of Madame Nourrisson's establishments, on rue Saint-Barbe, was managed by La Gonore; in the time of Louis Philippe another--a secret affair--existed at the so- called "Pate des Italiens"; Valerie Marneffe and Wenceslas Steinbock were once caught there together. Madame Nourrisson, first of the name, evidently continued to conduct her business on the rue Saint-Marc, since, in 1845, she narrated the minutiae of it to Madame Mahuchet before an audience composed of the well-known trio, Bixiou, Lora and Gazonal, and related to them her own history, disclosing to them the secrets of her own long past beginnings in life. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Cousin Betty. The Unconscious Humorists.]

NOUVION (Comte de), a noble refugee, who had returned in utter poverty; chevalier of the Order of Saint-Louis; lived in Paris in 1828, subsisting on the delicately disguised charity of his friend, the Marquis d'Espard, who made him superintendent of the publication, at No. 22 rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, of the "Picturesque History of China," and offered him a share in the possible profits of the work. [The Commission in Lunacy.]

NOVERRE, a celebrated dancer, born in Paris 1727; died in 1807; was the rather unreliable customer of Chevrel the draper, father-in-law and predecessor of Guillaume at the Cat and Racket. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.]

NUCINGEN (Baron Frederic de), born, probably at Strasbourg, about 1767. At that place he was formerly clerk to M. d'Aldrigger, an Alsatian banker. Of better judgment than his employer, he did not believe in the success of the Emperor in 1815 and speculated very skilfully on the battle of Waterloo. Nucingen now carried on business alone, and on his own account, in Paris and elsewhere; he thus prepared by degrees the famous house of the rue Saint-Lazare, and laid the foundation of a fortune, which, under Louis Philippe, reached almost eighteen million francs. At this period he married one of the two daughters of a rich vermicelli-maker, Mademoiselle Delphine Goriot, by whom he had a daughter, Augusta, eventually the wife of Eugene de Rastignac. From the first years of the Restoration may be dated the real brilliancy of his career, the result of a combination with the Kellers, Ferdinand du Tillet, and Eugene de Rastignac in the successful manipulation of schemes in connection with the Wortschin mines, followed by opportune assignments and adroitly managed cases of bankruptcy. These various combinations ruined the Ragons, the Aiglemonts, the Aldriggers, and the Beaudenords. At this time, too, Nucingen, though clamorously declaring himself an out-and-out Bourbonist, turned a deaf ear to Cesar Birotteau's appeals for credit, in spite of knowing of the latter's consistent Royalism. There was a time in the baron's life when he seemed to change his nature; it was when, after giving up his hired dancer, he madly entered upon an amour with Esther van Gobseck, alarmed his physician, Horace Bianchon, employed Corentin, Georges, Louchard, and Peyrade, and became especially the prey of Jacques Collin. After Esther's suicide, in May, 1830, Nuncingen abandoned "Cythera," as Chardin des Lupeaulx had done before, and became again a man of figures, and was overwhelmed with favors: insignia, the peerage, and the cross of grand officer of the Legion of Honor. Nucingen, being respected and esteemed, in spite of his blunt ways and his German accent, was a patron of Beaudenord, and a frequent guest of Cointet, the minister; he went everywhere, and, at the mansion of Mademoiselle des Touches, heard Marsay give an account of some of his old love-affairs; witnessed, before Daniel d'Arthez, the calumniation of Diane de Cadignan by every one present in Madame d'Espard's parlor; guided Maxime de Trailles between the hands, or, rather, the clutches of Claparon-Cerizet; accepted the invitation of Josepha Mirah to her reception on the rue Ville-l'Eveque. When Wenceslas Steinbock married Hortense Hulot, Nucingen and Cottin de Wissembourg were the bride's witnesses. Furthermore, their father, Hector Hulot d'Ervy, borrowed of him more than a hundred thousand francs. The Baron de Nucingen acted as sponsor to Polydore de la Baudraye when he was admitted to the French peerage. As a friend of Ferdinand du Tillet, he was admitted on most intimate terms to the boudoir of Carabine, and he was seen there, one evening in 1845, along with Jenny Cadine, Gazonal, Bixiou, Leon de Lora, Massol, Claude Vignon, Trailles, F. du Bruel, Vauvinet, Marguerite Turquet, and the Gaillards of the rue Menars. [The Firm of Nucingen. Father Goriot. Pierrette. Cesar Birotteau. Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Another Study of Woman. The Secrets of a Princess. A Man of Business. Cousin Betty. The Muse of the Department. The Unconscious Humorists.]

NUCINGEN (Baronne Delphine de), wife of the preceding, born in 1792, of fair complexion; the spoiled daughter of the opulent vermicelli- maker, Jean-Joachim Goriot; on the side of her mother, who died young, the granddaughter of a farmer. In the latter period of the Empire she contracted, greatly to her taste, a marriage for money. Madame de Nucingen formerly had as her lover Henri de Marsay, who finally abandoned her most cruelly. Reduced, at the time of Louis XVIII., to the society of the Chaussee-d'Antin, she was ambitious to be admitted to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, a circle of which her elder sister, Madame de Restaud, was a member. Eugene de Rastignac opened to her the parlor of Madame de Beauseant, his cousin, rue de Greville, in 1819, and, at about the same time, became her lover. Their liaison lasted more than fifteen years. An apartment on the rue d'Artois, fitted up by Jean-Joachim Goriot, sheltered their early love. Having entrusted to Rastignac a certain sum for play at the Palais-Royal, the baroness was able with the proceeds to free herself of a humiliating debt to Marsay. Meanwhile she lost her father. The Nucingen carriage, without an occupant, however, followed the hearse. [Father Goriot.] Madame de Nucingen entertained a great deal on the rue Saint-Lazare. It was there that Auguste de Maulincour saw Clemence Desmarets, and Adolphe des Grassins met Charles Grandet. [The Thirteen. Eugenie Grandet.] Cesar Birotteau, on coming to beg credit of Nucingen, as also did Rodolphe Castanier, immediately after his forgery, found themselves face to face with the baroness. [Cesar Birotteau. Melmoth Reconciled.] At this period, Madame de Nucingen took the box at the Opera which Antoinette de Langeais had occupied, believing undoubtedly, said Madame d'Espard, that she would inherit her charms, wit and success. [Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. The Commission in Lunacy.] According to Diane de Cadignan, Delphine had a horrible journey when she went to Naples by sea, of which she brought back a most painful reminder. The baroness showed a haughty and scornful indulgence when her husband became enamored of Esther van Gobseck. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] Forgetting her origin she dreamed of seeing her daughter Augusta become Duchesse d'Herouville; but the Herouvilles, knowing the muddy source of Nucingen's millions, declined this alliance. [Modeste Mignon. The Firm of Nucingen.] Shortly after the year 1830, the baroness was invited to the house of Felicite des Touches, where she saw Marsay once more, and heard him give an account of an old love-affair. [Another Study of woman.] Delphine aided Marie de Vandenesse and Nathan to the extent of forty thousand francs during the checkered course of their intrigues. She remembered indeed having gone through similar experiences. [A Daughter of Eve.] About the middle of the monarchy of July, Madame de Nucingen, as mother-in-law of Eugene de Rastignac, visited Madame d'Espard and met Maxime de Trailles and Ferdinand du Tillet in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. [The Member for Arcis.]

NUEIL (De), proprietor of the domain of the Manervilles, which, doubtless, descended to the younger son, Gaston. [The Deserted Woman.]