Dear Don,
 
I don´t know if this information is of specific interest to the VN-list.
I´m sending it on to you anyway because, w
hile continuing to read "Ada in Portuguese", I decided to check the link I already knew existed between St. Ursula and St. Cordula and the legend concerning their martyrdom.
 
After searching in the Google for "Jeunes Martyres" I came to the reference I had been looking for, St. Ursula, that came rather close to B.Boyd´s own anotations to Ada dealing with "young martyrs". He doesn´t mention neither Ursula nor Cordula as "young virgins and martyrs" in these notes. 
 
After trying to find a specific link bt. Ursula and Cordula  I  reached also Lear´s Cordelia.
There are many references to Cordelia and Lear in Ada, also  to St.Ursula when VN introduces Flaubert. 
Also the theme of Ursus and Bear is often brought up in relation to Lucette, plus a precocious reference to "b.e.a.r" concerning the list adolescent Ada and Van discover in the attic.
 
I-  Extracted from the first Google page on "Jeunes Martyres":
Légende de sainte Ursule
... ne pouvait honorer aucune de ces martyres en particulier. Les fouilles archéologiques
permirent de découvrir des ossements de jeunes femmes décédées ...
www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/amnord/legende-Ste-Ursule.htm - 7k - Em cache - Páginas semelhantes

Afternote to Ada, Part One, Chapter 14 - [ Traduzir esta página ]
... will associate Lucette more and more insistently with martyrdom, until Van meets
her in 1901, a few days before her suicide, in the rue des Jeunes Martyres. ...
www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/ada/ada114aft.htm - 26k - Em cache - Páginas semelhantes

Ada, Part Three, Chapter 3 - [ Traduzir esta página ]
... 459.20, cigars) and, leaving the hotel by a side exit, crossed the rue.
des Jeunes Martyres for a drink at Ovenman’s. [ 459 ]. Upon ...
www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/ada/ada33.htm - 77k - Em cache - Páginas semelhantes

 

2. La légende de sainte Ursule et des Onze Mille Vierges

1 Sainte Ursule

L’histoire relative à sainte Ursule est difficile à vérifier en raison de témoignages écrits fiables. On sait qu’une jeune fille nommée Ursule, fille d’un roi chrétien breton, vécut à la toute fin du IIIe et au début du IVe siècle. On sait également que cette jeune fille, ainsi que plusieurs autres, aurait été demandée en mariage par un prince païen d’origine germanique (...) elles auraient été capturées à Cologne par les Huns, puis martyrisées et mises à mort parce qu’elles ne voulaient pas trahir leur foi. Les jeunes filles furent enterrées dans une église de Cologne.
(...) Le culte d'Ursule et des Onze Mille Vierges a connu un immense succès au Moyen Âge, surtout en Allemagne, aux Pays-Bas, dans le nord de la France et en Italie (...)  Sainte Ursule fut reconnue comme la patronne des jeunes filles et des drapiers, car elle aurait été protégée par un manteau miraculeux.  Le calendrier grégorien a fixé la date d’anniversaire de sainte Ursule et de ses Onze Mille Vierges au 21 octobre (...). Christophe Colomb avait fait de même en 1493 en découvrant les îles Vierges (nommées Las Vírgenes).

.........................................................................

Concerning the Name Cordelia by Sara L. Friedemann
©2000 by Sara L. Friedemann. All rights reserved.
Excerpts:

Cordelia was the name of one of King Lear's daughters in Shakespeare's play by the same name, first performed in 1608. We find no evidence that any real person was called Cordelia before Shakespeare borrowed the name from legend for his character in "King Lear." A similar but probably unrelated saint's name Cordula was used in Germany in the 16th century, but we find no evidence that it was used elsewhere.

One hypothesis says that Shakespeare took it from Holinshed's work, published in 1577, where Cordelia appears as a scribal error for the name of a British/Welsh legendary character, Cordeilla (...)  Another hypothesis argues that Cordelia derives from Cordula, the name of a 4th century saint who was a companion of St. Ursula. Cordula is found in Germany as Kordula and Kordel and was not unpopular in the 16th and 17th century. However, some experts disagree on this point, and believe that Cordula and Cordelia are not related.