Beaufort

Beaufort is a Genevan merchant whose financial ruin and proud retreat to Lucerne set in motion the chain of events that brings Caroline Beaufort into the life of Alphonse Frankenstein, ultimately shaping the family into which Victor Frankenstein is born.

Identity and Background

Beaufort was a merchant of Geneva and one of the most intimate friends of Alphonse Frankenstein. He was a man of a proud and unbending disposition, who had once been distinguished for his rank and magnificence. Through numerous mischances, he fell from a flourishing state into poverty. Unable to bear living in poverty and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly been celebrated, he paid his debts in the most honourable manner and retreated with his daughter, Caroline, to the town of Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in wretchedness. Alphonse Frankenstein loved Beaufort with the truest friendship and was deeply grieved by his retreat, bitterly deploring the false pride that led his friend to conduct so unworthy of their affection.

Ruin, Concealment, and Death

Alphonse Frankenstein lost no time in seeking out Beaufort, hoping to persuade him to begin the world again through his credit and assistance. But Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself, and it was ten months before Alphonse discovered his abode. He found the house situated in a mean street near the Reuss. Beaufort had saved only a very small sum from the wreck of his fortunes, sufficient to provide sustenance for some months, during which he hoped to procure respectable employment in a merchant's house. The interval was spent in inaction, and his grief became deeper and more rankling with leisure for reflection. At the end of three months, he lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of any exertion. His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness, but their little fund was rapidly decreasing. Caroline Beaufort possessed a mind of uncommon mould; her courage rose to support her in adversity. She procured plain work, plaited straw, and by various means contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to support life. Several months passed in this manner. Her father grew worse; her time was more entirely occupied in attending him; her means of subsistence decreased. In the tenth month, Beaufort died in her arms, leaving her an orphan and a beggar. This last blow overcame her, and she knelt by his coffin weeping bitterly when Alphonse Frankenstein entered the chamber. He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who committed herself to his care. After the interment of his friend, he conducted her to Geneva and placed her under the protection of a relation. Two years after this event, Caroline became his wife.

Narrative Role and Significance

Beaufort's story is recounted by Victor Frankenstein in the first chapter of his narrative to Robert Walton, serving as the foundational tragedy that precedes Victor's own. The portrait of Caroline Beaufort in an agony of despair, kneeling by the coffin of her dead father, is an historical subject painted at Alphonse Frankenstein's desire and hangs over the mantelpiece in the family home. This image of grief and loss becomes a recurring visual motif in Victor's memory. The circumstances of Beaufort's ruin and death illustrate the character of Alphonse Frankenstein—his loyalty, his sense of justice, and his protective nature—and establish the pattern of a daughter left orphaned and destitute that will later echo in the fates of Elizabeth Lavenza and Justine Moritz. Beaufort himself never appears directly in the novel's action; he exists only as a figure from the past, yet his downfall creates the conditions for the marriage of Victor's parents and thus for Victor's own existence and the tragedy that follows.