inflicted on herself. His wrongful removal to the asylum at Les Tulettes
followed, and confinement soon confirmed the insanity which before had
only threatened. In 1864, his uncle, Antoine Macquart, in order to annoy
the Rougons contrived his escape from the asylum, and he returned by
night to his home at Plassans. Finding it in the occupancy of Abbe
Faujas and his relatives, he was overcome by the fury of madness, and
set fire to the house in several places. So thoroughly did he do his
work that all the inmates, including himself, perished in the flames. La
Conquete de Plassans.

MOURET (MADAME MARTHE), wife of the preceding. See Marthe Rougon.

MOURET (HELENE), born 1824, daughter of Mouret and Ursule Macquart, his
wife. La Fortune des Rougon.

When seventeen years old she married M. Grandjean, the son of a
sugar-refiner of Marseilles, whose family were bitterly opposed to the
match on account of her poverty. The wedding was a secret one, and
the young couple had difficulty making ends meet until an uncle died,
leaving them ten thousand francs a year. "It was then that Grandjean,
within whom an intense hatred of Marseilles was growing, had decided on
coming to Paris, to live there for good." The day after their arrival
Grandjean was seized with illness, and after eight days he died, leaving
his wife with one daughter, a young girl of ten. Helene, who was a woman
of singular beauty, had no friends in Paris except Abbe Jouve and his
half-brother M. Rambaud, but from them she received much kindness.
Her daughter Jeanne was far from strong, having inherited much of the
hereditary neurosis of her mother's family, along with a consumptive
tendency from that of her father. A sudden illness of the girl led to an
acquaintance with Doctor Deberle, and this ripened into love between
him and Helene, though considerations of duty kept them apart. Meantime,
Helene had discovered the beginnings of an intrigue between Madame
Deberle and M. Malignon, and in order to break it off was herself placed
in such a compromising position towards Doctor Deberle that he became
her lover. The discovery of the fact by Jeanne, whose jealous love of
her mother amounted to a mania, led to the child's illness and death,
and to her mother's bitter repentance. Two years later Helene married M.
Rambaud, and went to live at Marseilles. Une Page d'Amour.

She lived for many years, very happy, and idolized by her husband, in a
house which he owned near