TORLONIA (Duc), a name mentioned, in December, 1829, by the Baron Frederic de Nucingen, as that of one of his friends, and pronounced by him “Dorlonia.”  The duke had ordered a magnificent carpet, the price of which he considered exorbitant, but the baron bought it for Esther van Gobseck’s “leedle balace” on the rue Saint-Georges.  The Duc Torlonia belonged to the famous family of Rome, that was so hospitable to strangers, and was of French origin.  The original name was Tourlogne. [Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.]

TORPILLE (La), sobriquet of Esther van Gobseck.

TOUCHARD, father and son, ran a line of stages, during the
Restoration, to Beaumont-sur-Oise. [A Start in Life.]

TOUCHES (Mademoiselle Felicite des), born at Guerande in 1791; related to the Grandlieus; not connected with the Touches family of Touraine, to which the regent’s ambassador, more famous as a comic poet, belonged; became an orphan in 1793; her father, a major in the Gardes de la Porte, was killed on the steps of the Tuileries August 10, 1792, and her only brother, a younger member of the guard, was massacred at the Carmelite convent; lastly, her mother died of a broken heart a few days after this last catastrophe.  Entrusted then to the care of her maternal aunt, Mademoiselle de Faucombe, a nun of Chelles,[*] she was taken by her to Faucombe, a considerable estate situated near Nantes, and soon afterwards she was put in prison along with her aunt on the charge of being an emissary of Pitt and Cobourg.  The 9th Thermidor found them released; but Mademoiselle de Faucombe died of fright, and Felicite was sent to M. de Faucombe, an archaeologist of Nantes, being her maternal great-uncle and her nearest relative.  She grew up by herself, “a tom-boy”; she had at her command an enormous library, which allowed her to acquire, at a very early age, a great mass of information.  The literary spirit being developed in her, Mademoiselle des Touches began by assisting her aged uncle; wrote three articles that he believed were his own work, and, in 1822, made her beginning in literature with two volumes of dramatic works, after the fashion of Lope de Vega and Shakespeare, which produced a sort of artistic revolution.  She then assumed as a permanent appellation, the pseudonym of Camille Maupin, and led a bright and independent life.  Her income of eighty thousand livres, her castle of Les Touches, near Guerande —­Loire-Inferieure—­her Parisian mansion on the rue de Mont-Blanc—­now rue de la Chaussee-d’Antin,—­her birth, and her connections, had their power of influence.  Her irregularities were covered as with a veil, in consideration of her genius.  Indeed, Mademoiselle des Touches had more than one lover:  a gallant about 1817; then an original mind, a sceptic, the real creator of Camille Maupin; and next Gennaro Conti, whom she knew in Rome, and Claude Vignon, a critic of reputation. [Beatrix.  Lost Illusions.  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.] Felicite was