第108章 L(10)

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.]