Source note

NISERON (Jean-Francois), beadle, sacristan, chorister, bell-ringer, and grave-digger of the parish of Blangy (Bourgogne), during the Restoration; nephew and only heir of Niseron the cure; born in 1751. He was delighted at the Revolution, was the ideal type of the Republican, a sort of Michel Chrestien of the fields; treated with cold disdain the Pichard family, who took from him the inheritance, to which he alone had any right; lived a life of poverty and sequestration; was none the less respected; was of Montcornet's party represented by Brossette; their opponent, Gregoire Rigou, felt for him both esteem and fear. Jean-Francois Niseron lost, one after another, his wife and his two children, and had by his side, in his old days, only Genevieve, natural daughter of his deceased son, Auguste. [The Peasantry.]