LAURENT, a Savoyard, Antoine’s nephew; husband of an expert laundress of laces, mender of cashmeres, etc.  In 1824 he lived with them and their relative, Gabriel, in Paris.  In the evening he was door-keeper in a subsidized theatre; in the daytime he was usher in the Bureau of Finance.  In this position Laurent was first to learn of the worldly and official success attained by Celestine Rabourdin, when she attempted to have Xavier appointed successor to Flamet de la Billardiere. [The Government Clerks.]

LAURENT, Paris, 1815, M. Henri de Marsay’s servant, equal to the Frontins of the old regime; was able to obtain for his master, through the mail-carrier, Moinot, the address of Paquita Valdes and other information about her. [The Thirteen.]

LAVIENNE, Jean-Jules Popinot’s servant in Paris, rue du Fouarre, 1828; “made on purpose for his master,” whom he aided in his active philanthropy by redeeming and renewing pledges given to the pawnbrokers.  He took the place of his master in Palais de Justice during the latter’s absence. [The Commission in Lunacy.]

LAVRILLE, famous naturalist, employed in the Jardin des Plantes, and dwelling on rue de Buffon, Paris, 1831.  Consulted as to the shagreen, the enlargement of which was so passionately desired by Raphael de Valentin, Lavrille could do nothing more than talk on the subject and sent the young man to Planchette, the professor of mechanics.  Lavrille, “the grand mogul of zoology,” reduced science to a catalogue of names.  He was then preparing a monograph on the duck family. [The Magic Skin.]

LEBAS (Joseph), born in 1779, a penniless orphan, he was assisted and employed in Paris, first by the Guillaumes, cloth-merchants on rue Saint-Denis, at the Cat and Racket.  Under the First Empire he married Virginie,[*] the elder of his employer’s daughters, although he was in love with the younger, Mademoiselle Augustine.  He succeeded the Guilliaumes in business. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.] During the first years of the Restoration he presided over the Tribunal of Commerce.  Joseph Lebas, who was intimate with M. and Madame Birotteau, attended their ball with his wife.  He also strove for Cesar’s rehabilitation. [Cesar Birotteau.] During the reign of Louis Philippe, having for an intimate friend Celestin Crevel, he retired from business and lived at Corbeil. [Cousin Betty.]

[*] The names of Virginie and Augustine are confused in the original
    text.

LEBAS (Madame Joseph), wife of the preceding, born Virginie Guillaume in 1784, elder of Guillaume’s daughters, lived at the Cat and Racket; the counterpart, physically and morally, of her mother.  Under the First Empire, at the parish church of Saint-Leu, Paris, her marriage took place on the same day that her younger sister, Augustine de Sommervieux, was wedded.  The love which she felt for her husband was not reciprocated.  She viewed with indifference her sister’s misfortunes, became intimate in turn with the Birotteaus and the Crevels; and, having retired from business, spent her last days in the middle of Louis Philippe’s reign at Corbeil. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.  Cesar Birotteau.  Cousin Betty.]