LA BILLARDIERE (Benjamin, Chevalier de), son of the preceding, born in 1802.  He was a companion of the young Vicomte de Portenduere in 1824, being at the time a rich supernumerary in the office of Isidore Baudoyer under the division of his father, Flamet de la Billardiere.  His insolence and foppishness gave little cause for regret when he left the Bureau of Finances for the Department of Seals in the latter part of the same year, 1824, that marked the expected and unlamented death of Baron Flamet de la Billardiere. [The Government Clerks.]

LA BLOTTIERE (Mademoiselle Merlin de), under the Restoration, a kind of dowager and canoness at Tours; in company with Mesdames Pauline Salomon de Villenoix and de Listomere, upheld, received and welcomed Francois Birotteau. [The Vicar of Tours.]

LABRANCHOIR (Comte de), owner of an estate in Dauphine under the Restoration, and, as such, a victim of the depredations of the poacher, Butifer. [The Country Doctor.]

LA BRIERE (Ernest de). (See La Bastie la Briere.)

LACEPEDE (Comte de), a celebrated naturalist, born at Agen in 1756, died at Paris in 1825.  Grand chancelor of the Legion of Honor for several years towards the beginning of the nineteenth century.  This well-known philosopher was invited to Cesar Birotteau’s celebrated ball, December 17, 1818. [Cesar Birotteau.]

LA CHANTERIE (Le Chantre de), of a Norman family dating from the crusade of Philippe Auguste, but which had fallen into obscurity by the end of the eighteenth century; he owned a small fief between Caen and Saint-Lo.  M. le Chantre de la Chanterie had amassed in the neighborhood of three hundred thousand crowns by supplying the royal armies during the Hanoverian war.  He died during the Revolution, but before the Terror. [The Seamy Side of History.]

LA CHANTERIE (Baron Henri Le Chantre de), born in 1763, son of the preceding, shrewd, handsome and seductive.  When master of petitions in the Grand Council of 1788, he married Mademoiselle Barbe-Philiberte de Champignelles.  Ruined during the Restoration through having lost his position and thrown away his inheritance, Henri Le Chantre de la Chanterie became one of the most cruel presidents of the revolutionary courts and was the terror of Normandie.  Imprisoned after the ninth Thermidor, he owed his escape to his wife, by means of an exchange of clothing.  He did not see her more than three times during eight years, the last meeting being in 1802, when, having become a bigamist, he returned to her home to die of a disgraceful disease, leaving, at the same time, a second wife, likewise ruined.  This last fact was not made public until 1804. [The Seamy Side of History.]