As a goldsmith with a real historical record and surviving works, information on Paul de Lamerie was relatively easy to find.
He lived at 40 Gerard Street in London and owned forty-eight properties. These apartments now all fell within Chinatown, and none of them matched the manor in the Goblin's memory.
In 1716, he married a woman named Louise Julliot. They had six children, three of whom died before the age of five, while two daughters remained unmarried for life. His father died in 1731. Although he was then receiving commissions from European royal families and some of Europe's wealthiest households, he still gave his father a beggar's funeral.
No one knew what he spent his money on. When his widow and two daughters inherited his estate, they discovered that he had amassed enormous debts, enough that they had to auction off his stocks to repay them. Fortunately, he still left behind forty-eight properties, enough for his widow and daughters to live on the rent.
His goldsmith's workshop was taken over by his partner and remained in business to this day. Despite his terrible reputation, Paul's Rococo-style works were exceptionally exquisite. The trophy for the Weber Rugby World Cup, for instance, had been made after a cup he designed for Queen Elizabeth I.
In 1737, he was invited to join the "Parliamentary Food Special Committee." The committee had been established to prevent fraud involving gold and silver. It was the equivalent of putting poachers in charge of guarding the hunting grounds. One provision in the proposed bill allowed goldsmith organizations to search workshops. Naturally, de Lamerie did not want his workshop searched, so this mechanism that had existed since the Middle Ages was amended.
That same year, he sold a large-mouthed water jug to Lord Hardwicke. As expected, he evaded