# Colonel Marchant — The Venetians character guide

> Colonel Marchant in The Venetians by M. E. Braddon.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** the Colonel, Colonel, The Colonel

**First appearance:** 0000-i-in-the-city-by-the-sea

## Snapshot

A disreputable cardroom fixture and the shameful father of four daughters, the Colonel is the quartz in the gold-digger's seam that every suitor must reckon with.

## Who they are

Colonel Marchant is a Bohemian gambler whose name is a byword for ruin among parents and guardians of young men of fortune; his son Harold is darker still, a swindler and forger whose shadow falls across his blameless sister Eve. The Colonel's existence is a rock of offence that even maternal love cannot surmount — Mrs. Vansittart's dread of the connection poisons her son's engagement before the wedding bells ring. His offstage menace gives the early-middle arc its central social problem: whether a good woman can be separated from the bad blood and bad company that produced her.

## Relationships

### [Eve Marchant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_venetians_se/characters/eve_marchant)

_family_

Colonel Marchant is Eve's father or uncle, a military man whose rigid values clash with Eve's independence.

### [Eve Marchant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_venetians_se/characters/eve_marchant)

_family_

Colonel Marchant is Eve's father or uncle, a military man whose rigid values clash with Eve's independence.

### [Eve Marchant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_venetians_se/characters/eve_marchant)

_family_

Colonel Marchant is Eve's father or uncle, a military man whose rigid values clash with Eve's independence.

## In the story

### [VI: Why Should He Refrain?](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_venetians_se/chapters/vi-why-should-he-refrain)

Eve's father, described as disreputable, with a tarnished reputation from racing and financial troubles.

### [He Would Take His Time](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_venetians_se/chapters/vii-he-would-take-his-time)

Grumpy and critical, complains about his daughters and disparages Sir Hubert Hartley.

### [XII: “One Born to Love You, Sweet”](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_venetians_se/chapters/xii-one-born-to-love-you-sweet)

Receives Vansittart's offer for Eve with politeness but not enthusiasm; had hoped for a richer marriage.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_venetians_se/characters/colonel_marchant
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_venetians_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_venetians_se/characters