TOURS-MINIERES (Bernard-Polydor Bryond, Baron des), a gentleman of Alencon; born about 1772; in 1793, was one of the most active emissaries of the Comte de Lille (Louis XVIII.), in his conspiracy against the Republic. Having received the King's thanks, he retired to his estate in the department of Orne, which had long been burdened with mortgages; and, in 1807, he married Henriette Le Chantre de la Chanterie, with the concurrence of the Royalists, whose "pet" he was. He pretended to take part in the reactionary revolutionary movement of the West in 1809, implicated his wife in the matter, compromised her, ruined her, and then disappeared. Returning in secrecy to his country, under the assumed name of Lemarchand, he aided the authorities in getting at the bottom of the plot, and then went to Paris, where he became the celebrated police-agent Contenson. [The Seamy Side of History.] He knew Peyrade, and received from Lenoir's old pupil the significant sobriquet of "Philosopher." Being agent for Fouche during the period of the Empire, he abandoned himself in the most sensual way to his passions, and lived a life of irregularity and vice. During the time of the Restoration Louchard had him employed by Nucingen at the time of the latter's amours with Esther van Gobseck. In the service of this noted banker, Contenson (with Peyrade and Corentin) tried to protect him from the snares of Jacques Collin, and followed the pseudo-Carlos Herrera to his place of refuge on a house-top; but being hurled from the roof by his intended victim, he was instantly killed during the winter of 1829-1830. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

TOURS-MINIERES (Baronne Bryond des), wife of the preceding; born Henriette Le Chantre de la Chanterie, in 1789; only daughter of Monsieur and Madame Le Chantre de la Chanterie; was married after her father's death. Through the machinations of Tours-Minieres she was brought into contact with Charles-Amedee-Louis-Joseph Rifoel, Chevalier du Vissard, became his mistress, and took the field for him in the Royalist cause, in the department of Orne, in 1809. Betrayed by her husband, she was executed in 1810, in accordance with a death- sentence of the court presided over by Mergi, Bourlac being attorney- general. [The Seamy Side of History.]

TRAILLES (Comte Maxime de), born in 1791, belonged to a family that was descended from an attendant to Louis XI., and raised to the nobility by Francois I. This perfect example of the Parisian /condottieri/ made his beginning in the early part of the nineteenth century as a page to Napoleon. Being loved, in turn, by Sarah Gobseck and Anastasie de Restaud, Maxime de Trailles, himself already ruined, ruined both of these; gaming was his master passion, and his caprices knew no bounds. [Cesar Birotteau. Father Goriot. Gobseck.] He took under his attention the Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere, a novice in Parisian life, whom also he would have served later as his second against Desire Minoret, but for the latter's death by accident. [Ursule Mirouet.] His ready wit usually saved him from the throng of creditors that swarmed about him, but even thus he once paid a debt due Cerizet, in spite of himself. Maxime de Trailles, at that time, was keeping, in a modest way, Antonia Chocardelle, who had a news- stand on the rue Coquenard, near the rue Pigalle, on which Trailles lived; and, at the same time, a certain Hortense, a protegee of Lord Dudley, was seconding the genius of that excellent comedian, Cerizet. [A Man of Business. The Member for Arcis.] The dominant party of the Restoration accused Maxime de Trailles of being a Bonapartist, and rebuked him for his shameless corruption of life; but the citizen monarchy extended him a cordial welcome. Marsay was the chief promoter of the count's fortunes; he moulded him, and sent him on delicate political missions, which he managed with marvelous success. [The Secrets of a Princess.] And so the Comte de Trailles was widely known in social circles: as the guest of Josepha Mirah, by his presence he honored the house-warming in her new apartments on the rue de la Ville-l'Eveque. [Cousin Betty.] Marsay being dead, he lost the power of his prestige. Eugene de Rastignac, who had become somewhat of a Puritan, showed but slight esteem for him. However, Maxime de Trailles was on easy terms with one of the minister's intimate friends, the brilliant Colonel Franchessini. Nucingen's son-in-law--Eugene de Rastignac--perhaps recalled Madame de Restaud's misfortunes, and doubtless entertained no good feeling for the man who was responsible for them all. None the less, he employed the services of M. de Trailles--who was always at ease in the Marquise d'Espard's salon, in the Faubourg Saint-Honore, though a man over forty years of age, painted and padded and bowed down with debts--and sent him to look after the political situation in Arcis before the spring election of 1839. Trailles worked his wires with judgment; he tried to override the Cinq-Cygnes, partisans of Henri V.; he supported the candidacy of Phileas Beauvisage, and sought the hand of Cecile-Renee Beauvisage, the wealthy heiress, but was unsuccessful on all sides. [The Member for Arcis.] M. de Trailles, furthermore, excelled in the adjustment of private difficulties. M. d'Ajuda-Pinto, Abbe Brossette, and Madame de Grandlieu called for his assistance, and, with the further aid of Rusticoli de la Palferine, effected the reconciliation of the families of Calyste du Guenic and Arthur de Rochefide. [Beatrix.] He became a member of the Chamber of Deputies, succeeding Phileas Beauvisage, who had replaced Charles de Sallenauve, at the Palais-Bourbon; here he was pointed out to S.-P. Gazonal. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

TRANS (Mademoiselle), a young unmarried woman of Bordeaux, who, like Mademoiselle de Belor, was on the lookout for a husband when Paul de Manerville married Natalie Evangelista. [A Marriage Settlement.]

TRANSON (Monsieur and Madame), wholesale dealers in earthenware goods on the rue des Lesdiguieres, were on intimate terms, about 1824, with their neighbors, the Baudoyers and the Saillards. [The Government Clerks.]

TRAVOT (General), with his command, conducted, in 1815, the siege of Guerande, a fortress defended by the Baron du Guenic, who finally evacuated it, but who reached the wood with his Chouans and remained in possession of the country until the second return of the Bourbons. [Beatrix.]

TROGNON (Maitre), a Parisian notary, wholly at the disposal of his neighbor, Maitre Fraisier; during the years 1844-1845 he lived on the rue Saint-Louis-au-Marais--now rue de Turenne--and reached the death- bed of Sylvain Pons before his colleague, Maitre Leopold Hannequin, though the latter actually received the musician's last wishes. [Cousin Pons.]

TROISVILLE (Guibelin, Vicomte de), whose name is pronounced Treville, and who, as well as his numerous family, bore simply the name Guibelin during the period of the Empire; he belonged to a noble line of ardent Royalists well known in Alencon. [The Seamy Side of History.] Very probably several of the Troisvilles, as well as the Chevalier de Valois and the Marquis d'Esgrignon, were among the correspondents of the Vendean chiefs, for it is well known that the department of Orne was counted among the centres of the anti-revolutionary uprising (1799). [The Chouans.] Furthermore, the Bourbons, after their restoration, overwhelmed the Troisvilles with honors, making several of them members of the Chamber of Deputies or peers of France. The Vicomte Guibelin de Troisville served during the emigration in Russia, where he married a Muscovite girl, daughter of the Princesse Scherbeloff; and, during the year 1816, he returned to establish himself permantly among the people of Alencon. Accepting temporarily the hospitality of Rose-Victoire Cormon (eventually Madame du Bousquier), he innocently inspired her with false hopes; the viscount, naturally reserved, failed to inform her of his being son-in-law of Scherbeloff, and legitimate father of the future Marechale de Montcornet. Guibelin de Troisville, a loyal social friend of the Esgrignons, met in their salon the Roche-Guyons and the Casterans, distant cousins of his, but the intimate relations almost came to an end, when Mademoiselle Virginie de Troisville became Madame de Montcornet. [Jealousies of a Country Town.] However, in spite of this union, which he looked upon as a mesalliance, the viscount was never cool towards his daughter and her husband, but was their guest at Aigues, in Bourgogne. [The Peasantry.]