She exhausted her wit in trying to engage them in a
conversation, in which she tried to expend her fury in senseless
paradoxes, heaping on all men engaged in trade the bitterest insults
and witticisms in the worst taste.
On getting home, she had an attack of fever, which at first assumed a
somewhat serious character. By the end of a month the care of her
parents and of the physician restored her to her family.
Every one hoped that this lesson would be severe enough to subdue
Emilie's nature; but she insensibly fell into her old habits and threw
herself again into the world of fashion. She declared that there was
no disgrace in making a mistake. If she, like her father, had a vote
in the Chamber, she would move for an edict, she said, by which all
merchants, and especially dealers in calico, should be branded on the
forehead, like Berri sheep, down to the third generation. She wished
that none but nobles should have the right to wear the antique French
costume, which was so becoming to the courtiers of Louis XV. To hear
her, it was a misfortune for France, perhaps, that there was no
outward and visible difference between a merchant and a peer of
France. And a hundred more such pleasantries, easy to imagine, were
rapidly poured out when any accident brought up the subject.
But those who loved Emilie could see through all her banter a tinge of
melancholy. It was clear that Maximilien Longueville still reigned
over that inexorable heart.
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