Source note

SEVERAC (De), born in 1764, a country gentleman, mayor of a village in the canton of Angouleme, and the author of an article on silkworms, was received at Madame de Bargeton's in 1821. A widower, without children, and doubtless very rich, but not knowing the ways of the world, one evening on the rue du Minage, he found as ready listeners only the poor but aristocratic Madame du Brossard and her daughter Camille, a young woman of twenty-seven years. [Lost Illusions.]