person as well as her fortune.

To employ the jargon of the day, is there not a singular drama in the
situation of these four personages? Surely there is something odd and
fantastic in three rivalries silently encompassing a woman who never
guessed their existence, in spite of an eager and legitimate desire
to be married. And yet, though all these circumstances make the
spinsterhood of this old maid an extraordinary thing, it is not
difficult to explain how and why, in spite of her fortune and her
three lovers, she was still unmarried. In the first place, Mademoiselle
Cormon, following the custom and rule of her house, had always desired
to marry a nobleman; but from 1788 to 1798 public circumstances were
very unfavorable to such pretensions. Though she wanted to be a woman
of condition, as the saying is, she was horribly afraid of the
Revolutionary tribunal. The two sentiments, equal in force, kept her
stationary by a law as true in ethics as it is in statics. This state
of uncertain expectation is pleasing to unmarried women as long as they
feel themselves young, and in a position to choose a husband. France
knows that the political system of Napoleon resulted in making many
widows. Under that regime heiresses were entirely out of proportion
in numbers to the bachelors who wanted to marry. When the Consulate
restored internal order, external difficulties made the marriage of
Mademoiselle Cormon as difficult to arrange as it had been in the past.
If, on the one hand, Rose-Marie-Victoire refused to marry an old man, on
the other, the fear of ridicule forbade her to marry a very young one.

In the provinces, families marry their sons early to escape the
conscription. In addition to all this, she was obstinately determined
not to marry a soldier: she did not intend to take a man and then give
him up to the Emperor; she wanted him for herself alone. With these
views, she found it therefore impossible, from 1804 to 1815, to enter
the lists with young girls who were rivalling each other for suitable
matches.

Besides her predilection for the nobility, Mademoiselle Cormon had
another and very excusable mania: that of being loved for herself.
You could hardly believe the lengths to which this desire led her. She
employed her mind on setting traps for her possible lovers, in order to
test their real sentiments. Her nets were so well laid that the luckless
suitors were all caught, and succumbed to the test she applied to them