Source note

POMBRETON (Marquis de), a genuine anomaly; lieutenant of the black musketeers under the old regime, friend of the Chevalier de Valois, who prided himself on having lent him for assistance in leaving the country, twelve hundred pistoles. Pombreton returned this loan afterwards, almost beyond a question of doubt, but the fact of the case always remained unknown, for M. de Valois, an unusually successful gamester, was interested in spreading a report of the return of this loan, to shadow the resources that he derived from the gaming table; and so five years later, about 1821, Etienne Lousteau declared that the Pombreton succession and the Maubreuil[*] affair were among the most profitable "stereotypes" of journalism. Finally, Le Courrier de l'Orne of M. du Bousquier published, about 1830, these lines: "A certificate for an income of a thousand francs a year will be awarded to the person who can show the existence of a M. de Pombreton before, during, or after the emigration." [Lost Illusions. Lost Illusions. Jealousies of a Country Town.]