LA BAUDRAYE[*] (Jean-Athanase-Polydore Milaud de), born in 1780 in Berry, descended from the simple family of Milaud, recently enobled.  M. de la Baudraye’s father was a good financier of pleasing disposition; his mother was a Casteran la Tour.  He was in poor health, his weak constitution being the heritage left him by an immoral father.  His father, on dying, also left him a large number of notes to which were affixed the noble signatures of the emigrated aristocracy.  His avarice aroused, Polydore de la Baudraye occupied himself, at the time of the Restoration, with collecting these notes; he made frequent trips to Paris; negotiated with Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx at the Hotel de Mayence; obtained, under a promise, afterwards executed, to sell them profitably, some positions and titles, and became successively auditor of the seals, baron, officer of the Legion of Honor and master of petitions.  The individual receivership of Sancerre, which became his also, was bought by Gravier.  M. de la Baudraye did not leave Sancerre; he married towards 1823 Mademoiselle Dinah Piedefer, became a person of large property following his acquisition to the castle and estate of Anzy, settled this property with the title upon a natural son of his wife; he so worked upon her feelings as to get from her the power of attorney and signature, sailed for America, and became rich through a large patrimony left him by Silas Piedefer—­1836-42.  At that time he owned in Paris a stately mansion, on rue de l’Arcade, and upon winning back his wife, who had left him, he placed her in it as mistress.  He now became count, commander of the Legion of Honor, and peer of France.  Frederic de Nucingen received him as such and served him as sponsor, when, in the summer of 1842, the death of Ferdinand d’Orleans necessitated the presence of M. de la Baudraye at Luxembourg. [The Muse of the Department.]

[*] The motto on the Baudraye coat-of-arms was:  “Deo patet sic fides
    et hominibus.”

LA BAUDRAYE (Madame Polydore Milaud de), wife of the preceding, born Dinah Piedefer in 1807 or 1808 in Berry; daughter of the Calvinist, Moise Piedefer; niece of Silas Piedefer, from whom she inherited a fortune.  She was brilliantly educated at Bourges, in the Chamarolles boarding-school, with Anna de Fontaine, born Grosstete—­1819.  Five years later, through personal ambition, she gave up Protestantism, that she might gain the protection of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Bourges, and a short time after her conversion she was married, about 1823.  For thirteen consecutive years, at least, Madame de la Baudraye reigned in the city of Sancerre and in her country-house, Chateau d’Anzy, at Saint-Satur near by.  Her court was composed of a strange mixture of people:  the Abbe Duret and Messieurs Clagny, Gravier, Gatien Boirouge.  At first, only Clagny and Duret know of the literary attempts of Jan Diaz, pseudonym of Madame de la Baudraye, who had just bought the artistic furniture of the Rougets of Issoudun, and who invited