VAUQUELIN (Nicolas-Louis), a famous chemist, and a member of the Institute; born at Saint-Andre d’Hebertot, Calvadts, in 1763, died in 1829; son of a peasant; praised by Fourcroy; in turn, pharmacist in Paris, mine-inspector, professor at the School of Pharmacy, the School of Medicine, the Jardin des Plantes, and the College de France.  He gave Cesar Birotteau the formula for a cosmetic for the hands, that the perfumer called “la double pate des Sultanes,” and, being consulted by him on the subject of “cephalic oil,” he denied the possibility of restoring a suit of hair.  Nicolas Vauquelin was invited to the perfumer’s great ball, given on December 17, 1818.  In recognition of the good advice received from the scientist, Cesar Birotteau offered him a proof, before the time of printing, on China paper, of Muller’s engraving of the Dresden Virgin, which proof had been found in Germany after two years of searching, and cost fifteen hundred francs. [Cesar Birotteau.]

VAUQUER (Madame), a widow, born Conflans about 1767.  She claimed to have lost a brilliant position through a series of misfortunes, which, by the way, she never detailed specifically.  For a long time she kept a bourgeois boarding-house on the rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve (now rue Tournefort), near the rue de l’Arbalete.  In 1819-1820, Madame Vauquer, a short, stout, languid woman, but rather well preserved in spite of being a little faded, had Horace Bianchon as table-boarder, and furnished with board and lodging the following:  on the first floor of her house, Madame Couture and Mademoiselle Victorine Taillefer; on the second floor, Poiret, the elder, and Jacques Collin; on the third, Christine-Michelle Michonneau—­afterwards Madame Poiret,—­Joachim Goriot; whom she looked upon as a possible husband for herself, and Eugene de Rastignac.  She was deserted by her various boarders shortly after the arrest of Jacques Collin. [Father Goriot.]

VAUREMONT (Princesse de), one of the most prominent figures of the eighteenth century; grandmother of Madame Marie Gaston, who adored her; she died in 1817, the year of Madame de Stael’s death, in a mansion belonging to the Chaulieus and situated near the Boulevard des Invalides.  Madame de Vauremont, at the time of her death, was occupying a suite of apartments in which she was shortly afterwards succeeded by Louise de Chaulieu (Madame Marie Gaston).  Talleyrand, an intimate friend of the princess was executor of her will. [Letters of Two Brides.]

VAUTHIER, commonly called Vieux-Chene, former servant of the famous Longuy; hostler at the Ecu de France, Mortagne, in 1809; was implicated in the affair of the Chauffeurs, and condemned to twenty years of penal servitude, but was afterwards pardoned by the Emperor.  During the Restoration he was murdered in the streets of Paris by an obscure and devoted countryman of the Chevalier du Vissard. [The Seamy Side of History.]