When his brother Aristide came to Paris, Eugene found a situation for him, but, fearing to be compromised by him, suggested that he should change his name to Saccard which he did. There was no intimacy between the brothers, but Eugene occasionally visited Aristide at the great house built by him in the Parc Monceau. La Curee.
After Saccard’s bankruptcy, Eugene refused to have any further connection with him, though he tacitly approved of the foundation of the Universal Bank. The Bank having failed, however, he did nothing to stay legal proceedings against his brother; but, after a sentence of imprisonment had been passed, he connived at his escape from the country while the sentence was under appeal. L’Argent.
He continued to take a lively interest in Plassans, and it was by him that Abbe Faujas was sent there to counteract the clerical influence, which at that time was strongly Legitimist. He kept up a correspondence with his mother, whom he advised as to each step she should take in political matters. La Conquete de Plassans.
After the fall of the Empire, Eugene became a simple Deputy, and in the Assembly remained to defend the old order of things which the downfall had swept away. Le Docteur Pascal.
ROUGON (MADAME EUGENE), wife of the preceding. See Veronique Beulin-d’Orchere. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.
ROUGON (MARTHE), born 1820, daughter of Pierre Rougon; married in 1840 her cousin Francois Rougon; had three children. La Fortune des Rougon.
She accompanied her husband to Marseilles, where by close attention to business they accumulated a fortune in fifteen years, returning to Plassans at the end of that period and settling down there. Her life at Plassans was a happy one until the household fell under the influence of Abbe Faujas. From the first she was in love with the priest, and as he gave her no encouragement in this, she devoted herself to church services to the entire neglect of her household and family. As time went on, her passion for the Abbe grew more extreme, and her health became undermined to a serious extent. She became subject to fits of an epileptic nature, and having injured herself in some of these, she allowed the injuries to be attributed to her husband, whom she had now grown to regard as an encumbrance. Though she was aware that he was not insane, she allowed him to be removed to an asylum, where confinement soon completed the work begun by her own conduct. The Abbe Faujas having resolutely resisted her advances, her health became still worse, and she died in her mother’s house on the same night that her husband escaped from the asylum and burned down their old home. La Conquete de Plassans.