chess de Palmella, who was the wife of the
Portuguese Ambassador to France. The real family name was Busson; the
"du Maurier" came from the Chateau le Maurier, built in the fifteenth
century, and still standing in Anjou or Maine. It belonged to du
Maurier's cousins, the Auberys, and in the seventeenth century it was
the Auberys who wore the title of du Maurier; and an Aubery du Maurier,
who distinguished himself in that century, was Louis of that name,
French Ambassador to Holland. The Auberys and the Bussons married and
intermarried, the Bussons assuming the territorial name of du Maurier.

George du Maurier's grandfather's name was Robert Mathurin Busson du
Maurier, _Gentilhomme verrier_--gentleman glass-blower. Until the
Revolution glass-blowing was a monopoly of the _gentilshommes_, no
commoner might engage in the industry, at that time considered an art.
The Busson genealogy dates from the twelfth century. The novelist made
use of many of the names which occur in papers relating to his family
history, in _Peter Ibbetson_.

Du Maurier's father was a small _rentier_, deriving his income from the
family glass-works in Anjou. He was born in England, whither the
artist's grandfather had fled to escape the Revolution and the
guillotine, returning to France in 1816.

His grandmother was a bourgeoise, by name Bruaire, a descendant of Jean
Bart, the admiral. His grandfather was not rich, and while in England
mainly depended on the liberality of the British Government, which
allowed him a pension of twenty pounds a year for each member of his
family. He died a schoolmaster at Tours.

The mother of the artist was an Englishwoman married to his father at
the British Embassy in Paris, and the artist was born in Paris on March
6, 1834, in a little house in the Champs Elysees. His parents removed to
Belgium in 1863, where they stayed three years. When the child was five
they came to London, taking 1 Devonshire Terrace, Marylebone Road--the
house which had been formerly occupied by Charles Dickens. Du Maurier
remembered riding in the park, on a little pony, escorted by a groom,
who led his pony by a strap. One day there cantered past a young woman
surrounded by horsemen; at the bidding of his groom he waved his hat,
and the lady smiled and kissed her hand to him. It was Queen Victoria
with her equerries.

The father grew very poor. He was a man of scientific tastes, and lost
his money in inventions which never came to anythin