LE PILEUR, Pierre, about 1754. LESCLOP, Francois Henry, Paris, 1746. LOUIS, ----, Geneva. LOUVET, Jean, Paris, 1750. LUPOT, Jean, Mirecourt. LUPOT, Laurent, Mirecourt, born 1696. Son of Jean Lupot, removed to Plombieres, afterwards to Luneville, and again to Orleans. LUPOT, Francois, born 1736. Son of Laurent. Born at Plombieres. In the year 1758 he removed to Stuttgart, and was appointed maker to the Duke of Wurtemberg. Francois removed with his son Nicolas to Orleans in 1770. He died in Paris in 1804. The workmanship and style are similar to those seen in the instruments of Chappuy and other makers of that period. Scroll rather rough, varnish dark brown, broad pattern. LUPOT, Nicolas, son of Francois, born at Stuttgart in 1758, removed with his father to Orleans in 1770. N. Lupot fils, Luthier, rue d'Illiers, a Orleans, l'an 1791. Nicolas Lupot, Luthier, rue de Grammont; a Paris, l'an 1803. Nicolas Lupot, Luthier, rue Croix des-petits-champs, a Paris, l'an 1817. He established himself in Paris in 1794, his fame having reached that city some time before. The attention which he soon received from the musical world of Paris proved to him that his removal was advantageous. He had not long been in Paris before he was honoured with the patronage of the Conservatoire of Music, an honour which is attended with many benefits, the chief of which is the making of a Violin annually, to be awarded as a prize to the most successful student among the Violinists. By this arrangement the maker has an opportunity of exercising to the best advantage all the skill of which he is capable, as he is at once aware that the attention of the public is directed to the constructor of the prize, as well as to the receiver, and that an immediate road to popularity is thus opened. Lupot's appointment as maker to the Conservatoire was enjoyed by his successor, Francois Gand, and was retained by the latter's son, in conjunction with Bernardel. Nicolas Lupot may be justly termed the French Stradivari. He was an artist in every sense of the word. He regarded the works of Stradivari with the utmost veneration. While, however, he laboured unceasingly to imitate him, he scorned all those mischievous maturing processes common to so many French copyists; he never desired that his copy should pass with the unwary as the original; it left his hands wholly unsophisticated. There is not an instance in which he did not varnish the copy all over, leaving time to do its work of wear, although by so doing he doubtless sacrificed much in his own time, inasmuch as all new Violins, so varnished, have a crude appearance, notwithstanding any amount of high finish expended upon them. What, however, Lupot lost in his own day has been awarded to his name a hundredfold since. He seldom occupied himself in copying Guarneri or Amati, although there are a few beautiful examples met with now and again in which he adopted these forms. Stradivari was his