Repertory of the Comedie Humaine, part 2 | Page 5

mayor of the second district of Paris, and division-chief in the
Bureau of Finances, thanks to his kinship with a deputy on the Right.
He was one of the guests at the famous ball given by his deputy, Cesar
Birotteau, whom he had known for twenty years. On his death-bed, at
the close of December, 1824, he had designated, although without avail,
as his successor, Xavier Rabourdin, one of the division-chiefs and real
director of the bureau of which La Billiardiere was the nominal head.
The newspapers published obituaries of the deceased. The short notice

prepared jointly by Chardin des Lupeaulx, J.-J. Bixiou and F. du Bruel,
enumerated the many titles and decorations of Flamet de la Billardiere,
gentleman of the king's bedchamber, etc., etc. [The Chouans. Cesar
Birotteau. The Government Clerks.]
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.]
LA CHANTERIE (Baronne Henri Le Chantre de), wife of the
preceding, born Barbe-Philiberte de Champignelles in 1772, a
descendant of one of the first families of Lower Normandie. Married in
1788, she received in her home, fourteen years later, the dying man
whose name she bore, a bigamist fleeing from justice. By him she had a
daughter, Henriette, who was executed in 1809 for having been
connected with the Chauffeurs in Orne. Unjustly accused herself, and
imprisoned in the frightful Bicetre of Rouen, the baroness began to
instruct in morals the sinful women among whom she found herself
thrown. The fall of the Empire was her deliverance. Twenty years later,
being part owner of a house in Paris, Madame de la Chanterie
undertook the training of Godefroid. She was then supporting a
generous private philanthropic movement, with the help of Manon
Godard and Messieurs de Veze, de Montauran, Mongenod and Alain.
Madame de la Chanterie aided the Bourlacs and the Mergis, an
impoverished family of magistrates who had persecuted her in 1809.
Her Christian works were enlarged upon. In 1843 the baroness became
head of a charitable organization which was striving to consecrate,
according to law and religion, the relations of those living in free union.
To this end she selected one member of the society, Adeline Hulot
d'Ervy, and sent her to Passage du Soleil, then a section of
Petite-Pologne,