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 viscountess showed herself the devoted friend, in 1840, of Madame Calyste du Guenic, just after her confinement, who was almost dying of grief over the treachery of her husband. (Beatrix)

POSTEL was pupil and clerk of Chardon the druggist of L'Houmeau, a suburb of Angouleme; succeeded Chardon after his death; was kind to his former patron's unfortunate family; desired, but without success, to marry Eve, who was afterwards Madame David Sechard, and became the husband of Leonie Marron, by whom he had several sickly children. (Lost Illusions)

POSTEL (Madame), wife of the preceding, born Leonie Marron, daughter of Doctor Marron, a practitioner in Marsac (Charente); through jealousy she was disagreeable to the beautiful Madame Sechard; through cupidity she fawned upon the Abbe Marron, from whom she hoped to inherit. (Lost Illusions)

POTASSE, sobriquet of the Protez family, manufacturers of chemicals, as associates of Cochin; known by Minard, Phellion, Thuiller and Colleville, types of Parisians of the middle class, about 1840. (The Middle Classes)

POTEL, former officer of the Imperial forces, retired, during the Restoration, to Issoudun, with Captain Renard; he took sides with Maxence Gilet against the officers, Mignonnet and Carpentier, declared enemies of the chief of the "Knights of Idlesse." (A Bachelor's Establishment)

POULAIN (Madame), born in 1778. She married a trousers-maker, who died in very reduced circumstances; for from the sale of his business she received only about eleven hundred francs for income. She lived then, for twenty years, on work which some fellow-countrymen of the late Poulain gave to her, and the meagre profits of which afforded her the opportunity of starting in a professional career her son, the future physician, whom she dreamed of seeing gain a rich marriage settlement. Madame Poulain, though deprived of an education, was very tactful, and she was in the habit of