governess-student (Mademoiselle De Lafontaine and Laura)

Mademoiselle De Lafontaine serves as a finishing governess to Laura, a role that places her within the small, multilingual household of the schloss in Styria. Laura describes her as "a lady such as you term, I believe, a 'finishing governess,'" indicating that her function is to provide the final polish to a young lady's education, particularly in languages and social graces. She speaks French and German, contributing to the "Babel" of languages—English, French, and German—that the household speaks daily, a mix that often amused strangers but which Laura declines to reproduce in her narrative.

Role and Authority Within the Household

Mademoiselle De Lafontaine's authority over Laura is limited, as Laura herself notes that her gouvernantes had "just so much control over me as you might conjecture such sage persons would have in the case of a rather spoiled girl, whose only parent allowed her pretty nearly her own way in everything." This observation places Mademoiselle De Lafontaine within a hierarchy where Laura's father, as the sole parent, grants his daughter considerable freedom, thereby circumscribing the governess's disciplinary power. Her position is thus one of formal instruction rather than maternal or disciplinary authority, a distinction that separates her from Madame Perrodon, who has been with Laura since infancy and partially supplies the loss of her mother.

Intellectual and Mystical Disposition

Mademoiselle De Lafontaine is characterized by a tendency toward the psychological and metaphysical, a trait she claims in right of her German father. On the evening of Carmilla's arrival, as the party admires the moonlight, she declares that an intensely bright moon "indicated a special spiritual activity" and elaborates on its manifold effects on dreams, lunacy, nervous people, and life itself. She illustrates her point with a story about her cousin, a merchant ship's mate who, after napping on deck in full moonlight, dreamed of an old woman clawing his cheek and woke with his features "horribly drawn to one side," a distortion that never fully corrected itself. This anecdote, delivered with an air of authority, establishes her as a voice of esoteric knowledge within the household, one who interprets natural phenomena through a lens of mystical causation.

Response to Laura's Distress

When Laura confides in her governesses about the terrifying apparition she saw in her room—a female figure that vanished through the door—Mademoiselle De Lafontaine laughs at the story, though Madame Perrodon appears anxious. Mademoiselle then introduces a local rumor, saying, "the long lime tree walk, behind Carmilla's bedroom window, is haunted!" and recounts that a servant named Martin claims to have seen a female figure walking there twice before sunrise. Madame Perrodon dismisses this as nonsense, and Laura, concerned for Carmilla's nerves, insists the story not be repeated to her. Mademoiselle's response—laughter followed by a ghost story—reveals a temperament that treats the supernatural with a blend of intellectual curiosity and amusement, rather than the protective concern shown by Madame Perrodon.

Narrative Significance

Mademoiselle De Lafontaine's presence in the narrative is primarily as a secondary figure who contributes to the atmosphere of the schloss and provides a contrasting perspective to the more maternal Madame Perrodon. Her mystical interpretations and her readiness to entertain supernatural explanations foreshadow the Gothic horrors that will soon envelop the household, even as her laughter at Laura's terror suggests a failure to recognize the genuine danger. Her role as a finishing governess, with limited authority over a spoiled pupil, underscores Laura's isolation and the lack of effective adult protection that leaves her vulnerable to Carmilla's predations.