journalist; a Royalist; during the two years in which Lucien de
Rubempre made his literary and political beginning, Merlin was
especially noted. At that time he was Suzanne du Val-Noble's lover,
and a polemical writer for a paper of the Right-Centre; he also
brought honor to Andoche Finot's little gazette by his contributions.
As a journalist he was dangerous, and could, if necessary, fill the
chair of the editor-in-chief. In March, 1822, with Theodore Gaillard,
he established the "Reveil," another kind of "Drapeau Blanc." Merlin
had an unattractive face, lighted by two pale-blue eyes, which were
fearfully sharp; his voice had in it something of the mewing of a cat,
something of the hyena's asthmatic gasping. [A Distinguished
Provincial at Paris.]

MERLIN DE LA BLOTTIERE (Mademoiselle), of a noble family of Tours
(1826); Francois Birotteau's friend. [The Vicar of Tours.]

MERRET (De), gentleman of Picardie, proprietor of the Grande Breteche,
near Vendome, under the Empire; had the room walled up, where he knew
the Spaniard Bagos de Feredia, lover of his wife, was in hiding. He
died in 1816 at Paris as a result of excesses. [La Grande Breteche.]

MERRET (Madame Josephine de), wife of the preceding, mistress of Bagos
de Feredia, whom she saw perish almost under her eyes, after she had
refused to give him up to her husband. She died in the same year as
Merret, at La Grande Breteche, as a result of the excitement she had
undergone. The story of Madame de Merret was the subject of a
vaudeville production given at the Gymnase-Dramatique under the title
of "Valentine." [La Grande Breteche.]

METIVIER, paper merchant on rue Serpente in Paris, under the