Source note

GOURAUD (General, Baron), born in 1782, probably at Provins. Under the Empire he commanded the Second regiment of hussars, which gave him his rank. The Restoration caused his impoverished years at Provins. He mixed in politics and the opposition there, sought the hand and above all the dowry of Sylvie Rogron, persecuted the apparent heiress of the old maid, Mlle. Pierrette Lorrain—1827—and, seconded by Vinet the attorney, reaped in July, 1830, the fruits of his cunning liberalism. Thanks to Vinet, the ambitious parvenu, Gouraud married, in spite of his gray hair and stout frame, a girl of twenty-five, Mlle. Matifat, of the well-known drug-firm of rue des Lombards, who brought with her fifty thousand crowns. Titles, offices and emoluments now flowed in rapidly. He resumed the service, became general, commanded a division near the capital and obtained a peerage. His conduct during the ministry of Casimir Perier was thus rewarded. Futhermore he received the grand ribbon of the Legion of Honor, after having stormed the barricades of Saint-Merri, and was "delighted to thrash the bourgeois who had been an eye-sore to him" for fifteen years. [Pierrette.] About 1845 he had stock in Gaudissart's theatre. [Cousin Pons.]