The Count's reign began with a triple wedding, for he married Rosédès while Meurtrier married Valartine and Réginard plighted his troth with Shélobe, who looked upon the Count and smiled, saying, "Veeszh me vell, my liege-lorrd andt healer!" and Monte Fato replied, "I have wished you well ever since the Congress of Rivendeau. It heals my heart to see thee now à la mode." This triple éclat began the reign in a style that was elegant and magnificent, but was not the least pompous or overstated.
In his time, the Île-de-la-Cité was made more fair and exquisitely refined and full of architectural tourist traps than it had ever been, even in the days of its first éclat; and it was filled with tree-lined boulevards and with fountains in the shape of Uinenne that were suggestive without ever descending into indecency, and the Count's Tower was wrought of mithrile and steel in a delicately art-nouveau style with graceful curves and unexpected bizarreries like eight-legged tables that playfully nipped the Count's guests; and the Folk of the Montagne labored on their faux-Jacobin speeches there, and Folk of the Wood rejoiced to come there and gawk at the splendours therein and be fleeced; and all was healed and made tasteful, and the opera-houses were filled with mélomanes and mistresses and the laughter of gossips, and no window was Second-Numéneur nor any courtyard filled with obnoxious statue of venal politician; and after the ending of the Aragonnist régime into the new age it preserved the savoir-faire and the éclat and the gâteaux and the crêpes and the ou-la-la of the saisons that were gone.
