Note 582 — BOOK THE FIFTH. (continued 2)

This personage will be familiar to all who have read Sir Walter Scott’s novel of Quentin Durward. Oliver le Mauvais was valet de chambre and chief barber to Louis XI.; in October, 1474, he received letters of nobility from that prince, authorizing him to change his name of Mauvais to that of Le Dain. On the 19th of November, 1477, the king conferred the estates of the deceased Count of Meulant on Oliver le Dain and his heirs; and to this gift he added the Forest of Senart in October, 1482. On the 21st of May, 1484, Oliver was hanged “for various great crimes, offences, and malefactions.”