Source note

DERVILLE, attorney at Paris, rue Vivienne, from 1819 to 1840. Born in 1794, the seventh child of an insignificant bourgeois of Noyon. In 1816 he was only second clerk and dwelt on rue des Gres, having for a neighbor the well-known usurer Gobseck, who later advanced him one hundred and fifty thousand francs at 15 per cent., with which he purchased the practice of his patron, a man of pleasure now somewhat short of funds. Through Gobseck he met his future wife, Jenny Malvaut; through the same man he learned the Restaud secrets. In the winter of 1829-1830 he told of their troubles to the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu. Derville had re-established the fortune of the feminine representative of the Grandlieu's younger branch, at the time of the Bourbon's re-entry, and therefore was on a friendly footing at her home. [Gobseck.] He had been a clerk at Bordin's. [A Start in Life. The Gondreville Mystery.] He was attorney for Colonel Chabert who sought his conjugal rights with Comtesse Ferraud. He became keenly interested in the old officer, aiding him and being greatly grieved when, some years later, he found him plunged into idiocy in the Bicetre hospital. [Colonel Chabert.] Derville was also attorney for Comte de Serizy, Mme. de Nucingen and the Ducs de Grandlieu and de Chaulieu, whose entire confidence he possessed. In 1830, under the name of Saint-Denis, he and Corentin inquired of the Sechards at Angouleme concerning the real resources of Lucien de Rubempre. [Father Goriot. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]