STANHOPE (Lady Esther), niece of Pitt, met Lamartine in Syria, who described her in his “Voyage en Orient”; had sent Lady Dudley an Arabian horse, that the latter gave to Felix de Vandenesse in exchange for a Rembrandt. [The Lily of the Valley.] Madame de Bargeton, growing weary of Angouleme in the first years of the Restoration, was envious of this “blue-stocking of the desert.”  Lady Esther’s father, Earl Charles Stanhope, Viscount Mahon, a peer of England, and a distinguished scholar, invented a printing press, known to fame as the Stanhope press, of which the miserly and mechanical Jerome-Nicholas Sechard expressed a contemptuous opinion to his son. [Lost Illusions.]

STAUB, a German, and a Parisian tailor of reputation; in 1821, made for Lucien de Rubempre, presumably on credit, some garments that he went in person to try on the poet at the Hotel du Gaillard-Bois, on the rue de l’Echelle.  Shortly afterwards, he again favored Lucien, who was brought to his establishment by Coralie. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]

STEIBELT, a famous musician, during the Empire was the instructor of Felicite des Touches at Nantes. [Beatrix.]

STEINBOCK (Count Wenceslas), born at Prelie (Livonia) in 1809; great-nephew of one of Charles XII.’s generals.  An exile from his youth, he went to Paris to live, and, from inclination as much as on account of his poverty, he became a carver and sculptor.  As assistant to Francois Souchet, a fellow-countryman of Laginski’s, Wenceslas Steinbock worked on the decorations of the Pole’s mansion, on the rue de la Pepiniere. [The Imaginary Mistress.] Living amid squalor on the rue du Doyenne, he was saved from suicide by his spinster neighbor, Lisbeth Fischer, who restored his courage and determination, and aided him with her resources.  Wenceslas Steinbock then worked and succeeded.  A chance that brought one of his works to the notice of the Hulot d’Ervys brought him into connection with these people; he fell in love with their daughter, and, the love being returned, he married her.  Orders then came in quick succession to Wenceslas, living, as he did, on the rue Saint-Dominique-Saint-Germain, near the Esplanade des Invalides, not far from the marble stores, where the government had allowed him a studio.  His services were secured for the work of a monument to be erected to the Marechal de Montcornet.  But Lisbeth Fischer’s vindictive hatred, as well as his own weakness of character, caused him to fall beneath the fatal dominion of Valerie Marneffe, whose lover he became; with Stidmann, Vignon, and Massol, he witnessed that woman’s second marriage.  Steinbock returned to the conjugal domicile on the rue Louis-le-Grand, towards the latter part of Louis Philippe’s reign.  An exhausted artist, he confined himself to the barren role of critic; idle reverie replaced power of conception. [Cousin Betty.]