Page:Madame Rolland (Blind 1886).djvu/54

44 writing to Sophie, she reveals her inmost thoughts, and one can see that at this youthful age she felt almost as much bound to abide by her parents' choice as did Portia by the fateful caskets. Begging her friend's assistance on this "terrible occasion," she says she has had one interview with the gentleman, without being able to recall precisely "whether he was dark or fair," though it seems to her that "he was of a sallow complexion, with a long thin face, much pitted with the small-pox; hesitating of speech, and with nothing in his manners to attract or repel."

This affair, to her infinite relief, came to nothing; but one suit had no sooner been refused than a fresh wooer straightway started up, chiefly recruited from the tradesmen of "the quarter." These were by no means love suits, in our English sense, but business-like proposals, made by the relatives of would-be husbands to the lady's relatives, who first of all went to work in a round-about way, inquiring into the respective fortunes, character, disposition of the pair. To be so persistently sought after for years, not only shows that Marie Phlipon must have been considered the beauty of her quarter, but that her character and manners inspired the highest regard; not to forget that, being an only child, she was supposed to be an heiress in her small way.

Another batch of suitors having been sent about their business, Gatien Phlipon began to show signs of restiveness. He could sympathise with his daughter's aversion to ally herself with a pastrycook; but when it came to her refusing a thriving woollen-draper or goldsmith, he lost all patience. He began to rate her soundly for her dislike to shopkeepers, and Louis Blanc, as we have before hinted, seems inclined to