Source note

NANON, called Nanon the Great from her height (6 ft. 4 in.); born about 1769. First she tended cows on a farm that she was forced to leave after a fire; turned away on every side, because of her appearance, which was repulsive, she became, about 1791, at the age of twenty-two, a member of Felix Grandet's household at Saumur, where she remained the rest of her life. She always showed gratitude to her master for having taken her in. Brave, devoted and serious-minded, the only servant of the miser, she received as wages for very hard service only sixty francs a year. However, the accumulations of even so paltry an income allowed her, in 1819, to make a life investment of four thousand francs with Monsieur Cruchot. Nanon had also an annuity of twelve hundred francs from Madame de Bonfons, lived near the daughter of her former master, who was dead, and, about 1827, being almost sixty years of age, married Antoine Cornoiller. With her husband, she continued her work of devoted service to Eugenie de Bonfons. [Eugenie Grandet.]