GENEALOGICAL TREE OF THE FRENCH WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE

GODS & MONSTERS
Balsamo / Erik Families

: character present at Wold Newton in 1795.
characters made up for the purpose of connections.
links (not hyperlinks - return to ) to another genealogical tree.
Name on same level may not always be on same age group



SOURCES:

I have named this page "GODS & MONSTERS" because it is devoted to the magicians and/or alchemists ("gods") and the villains ("monsters) -- and sometimes, they are both and the same. This family tree derives from three very poweful historical figures, all alchemists themselves:

1) the first is Monsieur Ming (real name: Ming Tai Tzu; a.k.a. The Yellow Shadow) who, according to Henri Vernes' research, was the last imperial child of a Chinese Dynasty of the 13th century. He trained in Tibet and was made immortal by the Aggartha. He travelled the world and built a criminal empire, the Shin Than. He first encountered Bob Morane in 1959 in India. Later, he discovered the secrets of time travel, and was only thwarted by Morane when the latter was recruited by the Time Patrol of the future. Ming has peculiar golden/amber-like eyes, the smiling face of the tiger, and cunning second to none. He has one recorded "niece" -- Tania Orloff (see below) -- implying that he has married and produced offsprings before.

We know that Ming took a particular interest in medieval France, visiting it once in 1307, and twice c. 1350s in the medieval town of Mauregard, ruled by the beautiful Yolande de Mauregard, looking for the secrets of the alchemists. We also know that Dom Claude Frollo, the notorious archdeacon of Notre-Dame Cathedral, whose tale is told by Victor Hugo in Notre-Dame de Paris, also had yellow eyes and was said to be in possession of Nicholas Flamel's alchemical secrets. Flamel, who had met Ming, died or disappeared in 1418. We therefore theorize that Ming was Frollo's ancestor, and passed tre yellow eyes gene to his peculiar descendents.

One of these was Armand Chauvelin, the notorious nemesis of Sir Percy Blakeney, a.k.a. The Scarlet Pimpernel (whose exploits were recorded by Baroness Orczy). Philip Jose Farmer theorized that Chauvelin married Marie Gérard, the sister of Brigadier Gérard (whose life was chronicled by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). The Chauvelin Dynasty was studied by other scholars, but we are only interested in one offspring, Arlette, who had the misfortune of being raped by the Frankenstein Monster (whose name was Gouroull, as discovered by Jean-Claude Carrière) and gave birth to a disfigured son, Erik, who grew up to become the renowned Phantom of the Opera (whose life was researched by Gaston Leroux in his eponymous book).

While in the Far East, Erik fathered a child with Nadia Strogoff, the sister of Russian Captain Michel Strogoff, whose exploits were recounted by Jules Verne. That child grew up to become Alouh T'Ho, who claimed to be related to T'seu Hsi and the throne of China, and who became the mistress of a sect that stole other people's lifeforce, as revealed by Jean de La Hire in the Nyctalope saga.

During his stay under the Paris Opera, Erik also had a fling with the woman Allard a.k.a. L'Ombre and fathered the mysterious bandit known only as Tenebras studied by Arnould Galopin in Ténèbras le Bandit Fantôme (see the Rocambole family tree).

Meanwhile, Alouh T'ho first married the notorious Oriental mastermind Dorje (whose life was studied by Talbot Mundy in Jim Grim) and gave birth to Diana Ivanovna Krasnow, the so-called "Red Princess" who went on to marry Leonid Zattan as revealed by Jean de La Hire in the Nyctalope saga.

Alouh T'ho then moved into Europe, and through various dalliances (including with a member of the Kramm family) became among the ancestors of two families:

- the Linge dynasty of the Balkans -- whose modern-day Prince Malko Linge works for the C.I.A. under the alias of His Serene Higness, a.k.a. S.A.S., according to records produced by Gérard de Villiers.

- the Orloff dynasty, who include the notorious surgeon Dr. Orloff (whose exploits have been the basis of a number of motion pictures) and his daughter, Tania Orloff, who was treated by Ming as his niece, and fell in love Bob Morane (as recorded by Henri Vernes).

2) the second is Dr. Pretorius, well-known to student of the occult. We have theorized here that Pretorius is among the ancestors of a line of daring scientists that include Dr. Moreau (whose exploits were revealed by H. G. Wells), Dr. Lerne (whose life was chromicled in the eponymous novel by Maurice Renard), the "Mad Monk" Fulbert, and the German scientist Glo Von Warteck (a.k.a. Lucifer), both enemies of the Nyctalope, as per Jean de La Hire's accounts.

More interestingly, Dr. Pretorius is also one of the ancestors of the Kramm family, the most notorious representative of which is Dr. Cornelius Kramm, the so-called "sculptor of human flesh" and leader of the criminal empire of the Red Hand, whose deeds were recorded by Gustave Le Rouge.

3) the third was a participant at the Wold Newton meeting of 1795 -- it is none other than Joseph Balsamo, a.k.a. Cagliostro, Arthur Gordon Pym, Monte-Cristo, Nemo, etc. whose offsprings with Josephine de Beauharnais are reviewed in the Rocambole family tree.

As per Alexandre Dumas's eponymous novel, and William Kotzwinkle's Fata Morgana, we know that Joseph Balsamo married successively two Italian mediums, first Lorenza Feliciani then her sister, Seraphine Feliciani, who were both descendents of the Monteleone family (see the Black Coats family tree).

Joseph Balsamo had three children with Lorenza Feliciani:

- another noted alchemist, Wilhem Storitz (likely conceived during Balsamo and Lorenza's stay in Germany, before his arrival in France) who eventually grew up to discover the secret of invisibility. Storitz, whose bizarre life was narrated by Jules Verne in Le Secret de Wilhelm Storitz, is also among the ancestors of the Kramm family (see above).

- a woman whose husband was framed by the villainous Sinnimari, who then raped her and abandoned her to die, and whose son, Robert Pascal, returned to avenge her as the "King of the Catacombs" dubbed the "Roi Mystère" (king Mystery), whose life was recorded by Gaston Leroux in its eponymous book.

- third but not last, a powerful warlock who was known in the early days of the 20th century as Quentin Cassave, and who was over two hundred years-old. The story of Cassave, his capture of the last surviving Greek gods, and of his doomed nephew Jean-Jacques Grandsire, is told in detail by Jean Ray in Malpertuis. We have theorized that a descemndent of Cassave was none other than the mystic dubbed the Sâr Dubnotal, whose exploits were recorded by Norbert Sevestre.

Joseph Balsamo had two children with Seraphine Feliciani (who unlike Lorenza, did not die and later became known as the Countess Addhema, according to Paul Féval's La Vampire):

- one was the superhumanly brilliant mystic Louis Lambert whose quest to access to higher dimensions was recorded by Honoré de Balzac in his eponymous book. One of Lambert's descendents was the equally powerful medium Gianetti Annunciata, who became the Sâr Dubnotal's assistant.

- the other was a son, Zoltan Lajos, who used the alias of Cagliostro (like his father) and Ric Lazare, and was unmasked by French detective Paul Picard (see the Nyctalope family tree) according to William Kotzwinkle's Fata Morgana. The evil Lajos married the equally evil Renée Lazare, a daughter of the amoral Chevalier Draxel whose life was told by Etienne-Leon de Lamothe-Langon in Le Diable.

Zoltan and Renée, in turn, fathered the evil genius who became known as Leonid Zattan or Natas who was defeated only thanks to the efforts of the Nyctalope (as recounted by Jean de La Hire) and explorer Francis Hardant (see the Rocambole family tree) in the City of Gold and Leprosy, as recounted by Guy d'Armen in La Cité de l'Or et de la Lèpre.

Zattan married Diana Ivanovna Krasnow, the so-called "Red Princess" (see above), and their descendents included first their son, Hugues Mezarek (a.k.a. Belzebuth), who also fought the Nyctalope, and Dr. Athanase Xhatan, a mortal foe of Bob Morane.

Finally, when Balsamo was using the alias of Monte-Cristo (before he became Nemo), he had several other children from his liaison with Greek princess Haydée (as recounted by Alexandre Dumas).

- there was the Son of Monte-Cristo whose tale was told by Jules Lermina, and the Daughter of Monte-Cristo whose story was told by Edmund Flagg, and possibly others.

- of greater interest was Mathias Sandorf, whose story was recounted in detail by Jules Verne, who in turn fathered the man who became known as the sub-mariner Captain Hyx, whose story was told by Gaston Leroux.