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Repertory of the Comedie Humaine-2 [13]

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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
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