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,[1] 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)
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)
- ↑ The names of Virginie and Augustine are confused in the original text.
