Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/14

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

XIL JULY 4, 1903.

Not only was it the orange-blossom crown that the mother of a natural child dare not assume on her wedding-day, but also the white dress and veil habiliments appro- priated exclusively to the chaste. On the other hand the orange blossoms were a testi monial, not only to the purity of the bride herself, but to the integrity and morality of her relatives. In almost every village or small town in France the bride entitled to wear the crown of orange blossoms had this beautiful certificate of her purity either framed or placed under a glass shade, and it was religiously preserved, if possible, even through generations, as an indisputable testi- monial of character. One may ask, with the correspondent of L'IntermJdiaire, to what extent the observance of this striking cus- tom has ceased. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

[DR. MURRAY at 9 th S. x. 6 stated that a French scholar had informed him that orange blossoms "have nothing to do with female purity, but merely indicate the attainment of matrimony." See also the references given in the replies at 9 th S. x. 94.]

"BRACELET."! find this term is applied by London nursemaids to the deep wrinkle which lies between the arm and hand of a fat baby. I have never found the word used in this sense in Ulster ; there we call a fat baby's wrinkles its lerks, or lurks. It was in Lincoln's Inn Fields, a few days ago, that I heard the term " the bracelet " used in the above sense. W. H. PATTERSON.

THE HOTEL LAUZUN, OTHERWISE PIMODAN, PARIS. The Municipal Council of Paris has purchased the Hotel Lauzun, latterly known as the H6tel Pimodan, from the heirs of Baron Pichon. It is situated on the Quai d'Anjou on the He St. Louis, and it is in- tended to convert the building into a Museum of Decorative Art, after the model of our South Kensington Museum.

The building, which has had a somewhat chequered career, was originally erected by a certain Charles Gruyn, the son of a fashion- able cabaretier, ^ who, having amassed a fortune in business, gave his son a good education and launched him on the world. By dint of successful speculations, he was enabled to purchase a site in the lie St. Louis, on which he built himself a lordly pleasure house, which was completed in 1658. Gruyn married well, and changed his name to Des Bordes, the name of a property he had acquired near Loigny ; but, having been convicted of malpractices, he ended his days in prison in 1661.

In 1681 the dashing Due de Lauzun, who secretly married Mile. Montpensier, the

cousin of Louis XIV., in spite of the opposi- tion of the Court of Versailles, purchased the otel from Gruyn's heirs and considerably _nlarged it. From Lauzun the hotel passed into the possession of the Marquis de Riche- ieu, who had married Mile, de Mazarin, ^rand-niece of Cardinal Mazarin and daughter of Hortense Mancini. The next occupant was Ogier Christian name not known receiver to the clergy, who spent large sums in decorating the building ; after him came the Marquis de Tesse ; and then the Marquis de Pimodan, who was arrested as a suspected person, but managed to escape to Trieste, where he supported himself by giving lessons in drawing. The Marquis de Pimodan's son, Georges de la Vallee de Rarecourt, followed his grandfather, Baron de Frenilly (who was devoted to the elder branch of the Bourbons, and shared their exile), to Styria, in Austria. He was educated at the Jesuits' College, Friburg, where he was fellow-student with Count Raousset de Boulbon, who was shot in South America. The marquis entered the Austrian army, and served in the cam- paigns of Italy and Hungary in 1848-9, and contributed articles on the war to the Revue des Deux Mondes. He was taken prisoner at Peterwardein, and on the collapse of the Hungarian revolution in 1855 he resigned his commission and volunteered for the Papal army under Lamoriciere, and was killed at a reconnaissance nearCastelfidardo, 18 Septem- ber, 1860.

After the restoration of the Bourbons the Hotel Lauzun, which came to be known as the Hotel Pimodan, was tenanted by a succession of unknown persons until 1842, when it was purchased by Baron Jerome Pichon, a celebrated bibliophile, who, before taking possession, let it to a group of authors and artists, many of whom afterwards achieved celebrity, and who lived together in a free-and-easy manner, much to the scandal of the graver inhabitants of the quarter. On the death of Pichon in 1896 his library was dispersed, and the hotel was acquired by the city of Paris. It was in a house in the Impasse du Doyenee, since demolished, and not in the H6tel Pimodan, that the celebrated supper took place which was the talk of tout Paris, and for which Adolphe Leleux, Celestin Nanteuil, Corot, Chasseriau, Camille Rogier, Lorentz, Marilhat, and Gautier himself undertook the task of decorating the walls, greatly to the indignation of the landlord of the house, as related by The'ophile Gautier in his biographical sketch prefixed to the complete edition of Gerard de Nerval's works. JOHN HEBB.