Dinah's fits of fury when she saw herself condemned never to escape
from La Baudraye and Sancerre are more easily imagined than described
--she who had dreamed of handling a fortune and managing the dwarf
whom she, the giant, had at first humored in order to command. In the
hope of some day making her appearance on the greater stage of Paris,
she accepted the vulgar incense of her attendant knights with a view
to seeing Monsieur de la Baudraye's name drawn from the electoral urn;
for she supposed him to be ambitious, after seeing him return thrice
from Paris, each time a step higher on the social ladder. But when she
struck on the man's heart, it was as though she had tapped on marble!
The man who had been Receiver-General and Referendary, who was now
Master of Appeals, Officer of the Legion of Honor, and Royal
Commissioner, was but a mole throwing up its little hills round and
round a vineyard! Then some lamentations were poured into the heart of
the Public Prosecutor, of the Sous-prefet, even of Monsieur Gravier,
and they all increased in their devotion to this sublime victim; for,
like all women, she never mentioned her speculative schemes, and
--again like all women--finding such speculation vain, she ceased to
speculate.

Dinah, tossed by mental storms, was still undecided when, in the
autumn of 1827, the news was told of the purchase by the Baron de la
Baudraye of the estate of Anzy. Then the little old man showed an
impulsion of pride and glee which for a few months changed the current
of his wife's ideas; she fancied there was a hidden vein of greatness
in the man when she found him applying for a patent of entail. In his
triumph the Baron exclaimed:

"Dinah, you shall be a countess yet!"