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 retiring when patients came to consult her son. This she did when Madame Cibot called at the office on rue d'Orleans, late in 1844 or early in 1845. [Cousin Pons.]
POULAIN (Doctor), born about 1805, friendless and without fortune; strove in vain to gain the patronage of the Paris "four hundred" after 1835. He kept constantly near him his mother, widow of a trousers-maker. As a poor neighborhood physician he afterwards lived with his mother on rue d'Orleans at the Marais. He became acquainted with Madame Cibot, door-keeper at a house on rue de Normandie, the proprietor of which, C.-J. Pillerault, uncle of the Popinots and ordinarily under Horace Bianchon's treatment, he cured. By Madame Cibot, Poulain was called also to attend Pons in a case of inflammation of the liver. Aided by his friend Fraisier, he arranged matters to suit the Camusots de Marville, the rightful heirs of the musician. Such a service had its reward. In 1845, following the death of Pons, and that of his residuary legatee, Schmucke, soon after, Poulain was given an appointment in the Quinze-Vingts hospital as head physician of this great infirmary. [Cousin Pons.]
POUPART, or Poupard, from Arcis-sur-Aube, husband of Gothard's sister; one of the heroes of the Simeuse affair; proprietor of the Mulet tavern. Being devoted to the interest of the Cadignans, the Cinq-Cygnes and the Hauterserres, in 1839, during the electoral campaign, he gave lodging to Maxime de Trailles, a government envoy, and to Paradis, the count's servant. [The Member for Arcis.]
POUTIN, colonel of the Second lancers, an acquaintance of Marechal Cottin, minister of war in 1841, to whom he told that many years before this one of his men at Severne, having stolen money to buy his mistress a shawl, repented of his deed and ate broken glass so as to escape dishonor. The Prince of Wissembourg told this story to Hulot d'Ervy, while upbraiding him for his dishonesty. [Cousin Betty.]
PRELARD (Madame), born in 1808, pretty, at first mistress of the assassin Auguste, who was executed. She remained constantly in the clutches of Jacques Collin, and was married by Jacqueline Collin, aunt of the pseudo-Herrera, to the head of a Paris hardware-house on Quai aux Fleurs, the Bouclier d'Achille. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]
PREVOST (Madame), well-known florist, whose store still remains in the Palais-Royal. Early in 1830, Frederic de Nucingen bought a ten louis bouquet there for Esther van Gobseck. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]
PRIEUR (Madame), laundress at Angouleme, for whom Mademoiselle Chardon, afterwards Madame David Sechard, worked. [Lost Illusions.]
PRON (Monsieur and Madame), both teachers. M. Pron taught rhetoric in 1840 at a college in Paris directed by priests. Madame Pron, born Barniol, and therefore sister-in-law of Madame Barniol-Phellion, succeeded Mesdemoiselles La Grave, about the same time, as director of their young ladies' boarding-school. M. and Madame Pron lived in the Quartier Saint-Jacques, and frequently visited the Thuilliers. [The Middle Classes.]