home, where she remained for a fortnight, and
then ran off again. From time to time she returned, but her visits
gradually became less frequent till they ceased. L'Assommoir.

At sixteen years of age she had a child by an unknown father, and two
years later was installed in a flat in Boulevard Haussmann by a rich
merchant of Moscow, who had come to pass the winter in Paris. Bordenave,
the director of the Theatre des Varietes, gave her a part in a play
called _La Blonde Venus_, and though her voice was poor and she
was ignorant of acting, she was by the sheer force of her beauty an
immediate and overwhelming success. All Paris was at her feet; Comte
Muffat, Steiner, the Prince of Scots himself, came in turn to offer
homage. It seemed as if this girl, born of four or five generations of
drunkards and brought up on the pavements of Paris, was to revenge her
race upon the idle rich by the wild extravagances into which she dragged
them. Muffat and Steiner were her lovers, and ruined themselves by
the vast sums which she squandered; Georges Hugon killed himself from
jealousy of his brother Philippe, who embezzled for her sake, and
brought himself to imprisonment and disgrace; Vandeuvres too, after
courting dishonour, met death at his own hand; and Foucarmont, stripped
bare and cast off, went to perish in the China seas. The procession was
unending; more money was always required. After a successful appearance
in a play called _Melusine_, Nana suddenly left Paris and went to the
East. Strange stories were told of her--the conquest of a viceroy, a
colossal fortune acquired in Russia--but nothing definite was known.
When she returned to Paris in 1870 she found that her son Louiset had
been attacked by small-pox, and she herself contracted the disease from
him. A few days later she died in a room in the Grand Hotel, nursed only
by Rose Mignon, who had come to her in her trouble. The war with Germany
had just broken out, and as she lay dying the passing crowds were
shouting ceaselessly, "A Berlin, A Berlin." Nana.

COUPEAU (LOUIS). See Louiset.

COUPEAU (MADAME), mother of Coupeau the zinc-worker. She was an old
woman, and, her sight having given way, was unable to support herself.
Her daughter, Madame Lorilleux, refused anything but the most trifling
assistance, and ultimately Gervaise Coupeau took the old woman into her
own home and supported her till her death, which occurred some years
later. L'Assommoir.

COURAJOD, a grea