# The Lerouge Case — Character guide

> Key figures in The Lerouge Case by Émile Gaboriau.

- [M. Daburon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/m_daburon.md): Daburon belongs to an old Poitou family and moves easily among aristocratic circles, yet his cold, reserved manner hides an almost feminine sensitivity and a wound two years unhealed. Assigned to investigate the Lerouge 
- [Noel Gerdy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/noel_gerdy.md): Noel Gerdy passes in Paris as a talented young lawyer of rigid principle and austere manners, devoted to Madame Gerdy until a revelation shatters that devotion. Convinced he has been robbed of a noble name and a fortune 
- [Albert de Commarin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/albert_de_comarin.md): Albert is the only son of the proud Count de Commarin, raised to carry on the family's name and its carefully preserved aristocratic pretensions. When he meets his father at the station, his altered face betrays a troubl
- [Widow Lerouge](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/widow_lerouge.md): Claudine Lerouge lived modestly, but her past as a servant to a great lady left her holding the proofs of a clandestine birth and a child raised in secret. Her demands and extravagance, fed by that knowledge, eventually 
- [Claire d'Arlange](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/claire_darlange.md): Claire d'Arlange belongs to the same exclusive aristocratic world as the Comarins, and her engagement to Albert binds her fate to his. When Daburon reveals the charges against Albert, she refuses to waver, insisting that
- [M. Tabaret](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/m_tabaret.md): Old Tabaret lives quietly among his tenants, who mistake his abstraction for idiocy and his strange visitors for disreputable vice, never guessing he is a devoted student of crime. He adores Madame Gerdy and treats her s
- [Juliette Chaffour](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/juliette_chaffour.md): Juliette moves through the domestic world of the Lerouge household, privy to the small routines and unguarded moments that outsiders never see. When investigators begin pulling at threads, her knowledge of who came and w
- [Madame Gerdy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/madame_gerdy.md): Madame Gerdy has spent thirty-three years performing the role of devoted widow and mother, weaving a fiction that gave Noel a name and a future. Her love for him is real, but so is the fraud beneath it, and when Noel unc
- [Count Rheteau de Commarin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/count_rheteau_de_comarin.md): The Count de Commarin moves through Paris with the authority of old nobility, yet his composure cracks the moment he climbs the stairs toward Madame Gerdy's apartment. His name alone silences servants and startles strang
- [Gevrol](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/gevrol.md): Gevrol commands the early investigation with the swagger of a man who trusts his own reputation, delivering witnesses and theories with theatrical satisfaction. He is cunning in the conventional sense, but his certainty 
- [M. Clergeot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/m_clergeot.md): A notary involved in the legal affairs of the characters.
- [Valerie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/valerie.md): A woman connected to the Commarin family's past.
- [Madame Tabaret](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/madame_tabaret.md): Tabaret's housekeeper and a minor figure in his household.
- [Lecoq](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/lecoq.md): A young police officer who assists in the investigation.
- [Constant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/constant.md): A police officer or assistant to the investigators.
- [Marchioness d'Arlange](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters/marchioness_darlange.md): Claire's mother, a noblewoman concerned with family honor.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lerouge_case_se/characters