The New International Encyclopædia/Germinie Lacerteux

GERMINIE LACERTEUX, zhâr′mḗ′nḗ′ lȧ′sâr′tẽ′. A realistic romance by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt (1865), in which the authors aim to present, as they say, a ‘clinic of love.’ The story is that of a poor country girl who comes to Paris, and through the fault of another is launched upon a career to the dangers of which her temperament renders her peculiarly liable, and which finally brings her to death on a hospital cot. The study is based on actual observation by the authors. It was dramatized by Edmond de Goncourt, and produced at the Odéon in 1889.