de Suffren's first expedition, or the battle of Aboukir.
Though the old sailor had often said that he knew his longitude and
latitude too well to allow himself to be captured by a young corvette,
one fine morning Paris drawing-rooms heard the news of the marriage of
Mademoiselle de Fontaine to the Comte de Kergarouet. The young
Countess gave splendid entertainments to drown thought; but she, no
doubt, found a void at the bottom of the whirlpool; luxury was
ineffectual to disguise the emptiness and grief of her sorrowing soul;
for the most part, in spite of the flashes of assumed gaiety, her
beautiful face expressed unspoken melancholy. Emilie appeared,
however, full of attentions and consideration for her old husband,
who, on retiring to his rooms at night, to the sounds of a lively
band, would often say, "I do not know myself. Was I to wait till the
age of seventy-two to embark as pilot on board the Belle Emilie after
twenty years of matrimonial galleys?"
The conduct of the young Countess was marked by such strictness that
the most clear-sighted criticism had no fault to find with her.
Lookers on chose to think that the vice-admiral had reserved the right
of disposing of his fortune to keep his wife more tightly in hand; but
this was a notion as insulting to the uncle as to the niece. Their
conduct was indeed so delicately judicious that the men who were most
interested in guessing the secrets of the couple could never decide
whether the old Count regarded her as a wife or as a daughter.
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