What cursed noble family appears in Lovecraft's 'The Alchemist'?

The cursed noble family in Lovecraft’s “The Alchemist” is the Comtes de C. The narrator, Count Antoine de C., belongs to this dwindling aristocratic line, whose members are doomed to die when they reach the age of thirty-two.

The curse begins with Antoine’s ancestor, who helped kill the sorcerer Michel Mauvais. Mauvais’s son, Charles le Sorcier, swears revenge on the entire family rather than on one individual. Generation after generation, the family’s members die in mysterious circumstances as they approach the same age.

Antoine is the last surviving heir, living in a decaying castle with only his servant Pierre. As his thirty-second birthday nears, he investigates the ruined parts of the castle and discovers a hidden passage. The apparent family curse ultimately has a startling physical explanation: Charles survived through an elixir of life and has been personally continuing the revenge.

The name can be confused with Lovecraft’s other cursed or doomed families, such as the Martenses in “The Lurking Fear.” “The Alchemist” was written in 1908, when Lovecraft was still a teenager, but was not published until 1916.