spirit in which her brothers and sisters
sometimes received the claims avowed by Mademoiselle de Fontaine roused
her to wrath that a perfect hailstorm of sharp sayings could hardly
mitigate. So when the head of the family felt a slight chill in the
King's tacit and precarious friendship, he trembled all the more
because, as a result of her sisters' defiant mockery, his favorite
daughter had never looked so high.

In the midst of these circumstances, and at a moment when this petty
domestic warfare had become serious, the monarch, whose favor Monsieur
de Fontaine still hoped to regain, was attacked by the malady of which
he was to die. The great political chief, who knew so well how to steer
his bark in the midst of tempests, soon succumbed. Certain then of
favors to come, the Comte de Fontaine made every effort to collect the
elite of marrying men about his youngest daughter. Those who may
have tried to solve the difficult problem of settling a haughty and
capricious girl, will understand the trouble taken by the unlucky
father. Such an affair, carried out to the liking of his beloved child,
would worthily crown the career the Count had followed for these ten
years at Paris. From the way in which his family claimed salaries under
every department, it might be compared with the House of Austria, which,
by intermarriage, threatens to pervade Europe. The old Vendeen was
not to be discouraged in bringing forward suitors, so much had he his
daughter's happiness at heart, but nothing could be more absurd than
the way in which the impertinent young thing pronounced her verdicts and
judged the merits of her adorers. It might have been supposed that, like
a princess in the Arabian Nights, Emilie was rich enough and beautiful
enough to choose from among all the princes in the world. Her objections
were each more preposterous than the last: one had too thick knees and
was bow-legged, another was short-sighted, this one's name was Durand,
that one limped, and almost all were too fat. Livelier, more attractive,
and gayer than ever after dismissing two or three suitors, she rushed
into the festivities of the winter season, and to balls, where her keen
eyes criticised the celebrities of the day, delighted in encouraging
proposals which she invariably rejected.

Nature had bestowed on her all the advantages needed for playing the
part of Celimene. Tall and slight, Emilie de Fontaine could assume a
dignified or a frolicsome mien at her