Monsieur l’Abbé is traditionally considered a fictional character from Pushkin’s novel Eugene Onegin. And yet, data from archives, official directories, and memoirs hint at a prototype behind the mask: a G.L. Labbé-Delond (1773–1830), a teacher of French and Latin patronized by some eminent aristocrats from St. Peters-burg. An account of Labbé-Delond’s life gives reasons to disprove the school’s interpretation of the Rus-sian epithet “ubogij” interpreted as “zaurjadnyj” (mediocre).