LEMIRE, professor of drawing in the Imperial Lyceum, Paris, in 1812;
foresaw the talent of Joseph Bridau, one of his pupils, for painting,
and threw the future artist's mother into consternation by telling her
of this fact. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]
LEMPEREUR, in 1819, Chaussee-d'Antin, Paris, clerk to Charles
Claparon, at that time "straw-man" of Tillet, Roguin & Company. [Cesar
Birotteau.]
LEMPRUN, born in 1745, son-in-law of Galard, market-gardener of
Auteuil. Employed, in turn, in the houses of Thelusson and of Keller
in Paris, he was probably the first messenger in the service of the
Bank of France, having entered that establishment when it was founded.
He met Mademoiselle Brigitte Thuillier during this period of his life,
and in 1814 gave Celeste, his only daughter, in marriage to Brigitte's
brother, Louis-Jerome Thuillier. M. Lemprun died the year following.
[The Middle Classes.]
LEMPRUN (Madame), wife of the preceding, daughter of Galard, the
market-gardener of Auteuil, mother of one child--Madame Celeste
Thuillier. She lived in the village of Auteuil from 1815 until the
time of her death in 1829. She reared Celeste Phellion, daughter of
L.-J. Thuillier and of Madame de Colleville. Madame Lemprun left a
small fortune inherited from her father, M. Galard, which was
administered by Brigitte Thuillier. This Lemprun estate consisted of
twenty thousand francs, saved by the strictest economy, and of a house
which was sold for twenty-eight thousand francs. [The Middle Classes.]
LEMULQUINIER, a native of Flanders, owed his name to the linen-yarn
dealers of that province, who are called _mulquiniers_. He lived in
Douai, was the valet of Balthazar Claes, and encouraged and aided his
master in his foolish investigations, despite the extreme coldness of
his own nature and the opposition of Josette, Martha, and the women of
the Claes family. Lemulquinier even went so far as to give all his
personal property to M. Claes. [The Quest of the Absolute.]
LENONCOURT (De), born in 1708, marshal of France, marquis at first,
then duke, was the friend of Victor-Amedee de Verneuil, and adopted
Marie de Verneuil, the acknowledged natural daughter of his old
comrade, when the latter died. Suspected unjustly of being this young
girl's lover, the septuagenarian refused to marry her, and leaving her
behind he changed his place of residence to Coblentz. [The Chouans.]
LENONCOURT (Duc de), father of Madame de Mortsauf. The early part of
the Restoration was the brilliant period of his career. He obtained a
peerage, owned a house in Paris on rue Saint-Dominique-Saint-Germain,
looked after Birotteau and found him a situation just after his
failure. Lenoncourt played for the favor of Louis XVIII., was first
gentleman in the king's chamber, and welcomed Victurnien d'Esgrignon,
with whom he had some relationship. The Duc de Lenoncourt was, in
1835, visiting the Princesse de Cadignan, when Marsay explained the
reasons the political order had for the mysterious kidnapping of
Gondreville. Three years later he died a very old man. [The Lily of
the Valley. Cesar Birotteau. Jealousies of a Country Town. The
Gondreville Mystery. Beatrix.]
LENONCOURT (Duchesse de), wife of the preceding, born in 1758, of a
cold, severe, insincere, ambitious nature, was almost always unkind to
her daughter, Madame de Mortsauf. [The Lily of the Valley.]
LENONCOURT-GIVRY (Duc de), youngest son of M. and Madame de Chaulieu,
at first followed a military career. Titles and names in abundance
came to him. In 1827 he married Madeleine de Mortsauf, the only heir
of her parents. [Letters of Two Brides.] The Duc de Lenoncourt-Givry
was a man of some importance in the Paris of Louis Philippe and was
invited to the festival at the opening of Josepha Mirah's new house,
rue de la Ville-l'Eveque. [Cousin Betty.] The year following attention
was still turned towards him indirectly, when Sallenauve was
contending in defence of the duke's brother-in-law. [The Member for
Arcis.]
LENONCOURT-GIVRY (Duchesse de), wife of the preceding, bore the first
name of Madeleine. Madame de Lenoncourt-Givry was one of two children
of the Comte and Comtesse de Mortsauf. She lived almost alone in her
family, having lost at an early age her mother, then her brother
Jacques. While passing her girlhood in Touraine, she met Felix de
Vandenesse, from whom she knew how to keep aloof on becoming an
orphan. Her inheritance of names, titles and wealth brought about her
marriage with the youngest son of M. and Madame de Chaulieu in 1827,
and established for her a friendship with the Grandlieus, whose
daughter, Clotilde, accompanied her to Italy about 1830. During the
first day of their journey the arrest of Lucien Chardon de Rubempre
took place under their eyes near Bouron, Seine-et-Marne. [The Lily of
the Valley. Letters of Two Brides. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]
LENORMAND was court registrar at Paris during the Restoration, and did
Comte Octave de Bauvan a service by passing himself off as owner of a
house on rue Saint-Maur, which belonged in reality to the count and
where the wife of that high magistrate lived, at that time being
separated from her husband. [Honorine.]
LEOPOLD, a character in "L'Ambitieux par Amour," a novel by Albert
Savarus, was Maitre Leopold Hannequin. The author pictured him as
having a strong passion--imaginary or true--for the mother of
Rodolphe, the hero of this autobiographical novel, published by the
"Revue de l'Est" under the reign of Louis Philippe. [Albert Savarus.]
LEPAS (Madame de), for a long time keeper of a tavern at Vendome, of
Flemish physique; acquainted with M. and Madame de Merret, and
furnished information about them to Doctor Horace Bianchon; Comte
Bagos de Feredia, who died so tragically, having been a lodger in her
house. She was also interviewed by the author, who, under the name of
Valentine, gave on the stage of the Gymnase-Dramatique the story of
the incontinence and punishment of Josephine de Merret. This Vendome
tavern-keeper pretended also to have lodged some princesses, M.
Decazes, General Bertrand, the King of Spain, and the Duc and Duchesse
of d'Abrantes. [La Grande Bretche.]
LEPITRE, strong Royalist, had some relations with M. de Vandenesse,
when they wished to rescue Marie-Antoinette from the Temple. Later,
under the Empire, having become head of an academy, in the old Joyeuse
house, Quartier Saint-Antoine, Paris, Lepitre counted among his pupils
a son of M. de Vandenesse, Felix. Lepitre was fat, like Louis XVIII.,
and club-footed. [The Lily of the Valley.]
LEPITRE (Madame), wife of the preceding, reared Felix de Vandenesse.
[The Lily of the Valley.]
LEPRINCE (Monsieur and Madame). M. Leprince was a Parisian auctioneer
towards the end of the Empire and at the beginning of the Restoration.
He finally sold his business at a great profit; but being injured by
one of Nucingen's failures, he lost in some speculations on the Bourse
some of the profits that he had realized. He was the father-in-law of
Xavier Rabourdin, whose fortune he risked in these dangerous
speculations, that his son-in-law's domestic comfort might be
increased. Crushed by misfortune he died under Louis XVIII., leaving
some rare paintings which beautified the parlor of his children's home
on rue Duphot. Madame Leprince, who died before the bankrupt
auctioneer, a distinguished woman and a natural artist, worshiped and,
consequently, spoiled her only child, Celestine, who became Madame
Xavier Rabourdin. She communicated to her daughter some of her own
tastes, and thoughtlessly, perhaps, developed in her a love of luxury,
intelligent and refined. [The Government Clerks.]
LEROI (Pierre), called also Marche-a-terre, a Fougeres Chouan, who
played an important part during the civil war of 1799 in Bretagne,
where he gave evidence of courage and heartlessness. He survived the
tragedy of this period, for he was seen on the Place d'Alencon in 1809
when Cibot--Pille-Miche--was tried at the bar as a chauffeur and
attempted to escape. In 1827, nearly twenty years later, this same
Pierre Leroi was known as a peaceable cattle-trader in the markets of
his province. [The Chouans. The Seamy Side of History. Jealousies of a
Country Town.]
LEROI (Madame), mother of the preceding, being ill, was cured on
coming to Fougeres to pray under the oak of the Patte-d'Oie. This tree
was decorated with a beautiful wooden image of the Virgin, placed
there in memory of Sainte-Anne d'Auray's appearance in this place.
[The Chouans.]
LESEIGNEUR DE ROUVILLE (Baronne), pensionless widow of a sea-captain
who had died at Batavia, under the Republic, during a prolonged
engagement with an English vessel; mother of Madame Hippolyte
Schinner. Early in the nineteenth century she lived at Paris with her
unmarried daughter, Adelaide. On the fourth story of a house belonging
to Molineux, on rue de Surene, near the Madeleine, Madame Leseigneur
occupied unadorned and gloomy apartments. There she frequently
received Hippolyte Schinner, Messieurs du Halga and de Kergarouet. She
received from two of these friends many delicate marks of sympathy,
despite the gossip of the neighbors who were astonished that Madame de
Rouville and her daughter should have different names, and shocked by
their very suspicious behavior. The manner in which Mesdames
Leseigneur recognized the good offices of Schinner led to his marriage
with Mademoiselle de Rouville. [The Purse.]