There were plenty of examples of such snobbery. Laugeois, farmer-general, called himself de Laugeois; Delrieux, the king's maître d'hôtel, became de Rieux de Saintrailles, first equerry to the Duc de Bourbon, changed his family name from Roton to Poton so as to suggest descent from a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc; the son of M. de Sonin, receveur of Paris, called himself de Sonningen, for exoticism's sake, while the Nicolai family were really plain Nicolas.