Who is Mademoiselle De Lafontaine?

Mademoiselle De Lafontaine is the finishing governess at the schloss who belongs to Laura’s intimate domestic circle. She helps care for visitors and the household’s young ladies, shares evenings in the drawing room, and takes part in the searches and watchfulness that follow Carmilla’s strange behavior. Practical in her duties, she also indulges in metaphysical speculation with the others, joking at times to lighten tension but contributing sober suggestions when events become alarming. She assists Madame Perrodon in tending the new guest, helps supervise Laura, participates in the unpacking of portraits, and joins the household in searching the grounds and rooms after Carmilla’s disappearances and strange episodes. Mademoiselle rarely propels the plot, but she steadies the domestic routine, offers plausible mundane explanations (such as hidden cupboards or sleepwalking), and helps enforce the doctor’s instructions that Laura not be left alone. Her presence emphasizes the household’s collective response to the uncanny while remaining a calm, measured voice within the castle’s circle.

In the book: Laura’s finishing governess, Mademoiselle De Lafontaine is part of the intimate domestic circle at the schloss. Practical yet inclined to mystical and “metaphysical” notions, she helps chaperone and comment on events, providing a steady, respectable counterpoint to the story’s growing unease without driving the plot herself.

Personality

Practical: She helps tend the stranger on arrival, prepares rooms, and participates in the household’s organized searches after Carmilla’s disappearances.
Respectable: She acts as a steady chaperone in the drawing room card party and follows the doctor’s instructions about constant attendance for Laura.
Lighthearted: When fears arise, she makes a joking remark about a haunted lime-tree walk, attempting to ease the household’s tension.
Open to the uncanny: She engages in conversation about the moon’s mysterious influences and metaphysical notions with Laura and others at dusk.
Observant: She suggests plausible hiding-places like a press or behind a curtain when Carmilla is first discovered missing, contributing to the practical search.

Character arc

Mademoiselle De Lafontaine appears from the start as a composed member of the household, and she remains largely constant through the episodes recorded. Early on she helps welcome and tend the strange young guest, taking part in the domestic rituals that normalize the newcomer’s presence. As unsettling events accumulate—shared childhood visions, portraits, sudden faintness, and nocturnal apparitions—she oscillates between light joking and sober practicality: she makes a teasing remark about the lime-tree walk but also joins the methodical searches and offers concrete suggestions about where Carmilla might hide. When Carmilla vanishes and later reappears bewildered, Mademoiselle supports the household’s more mundane explanations (sleepwalking, hidden presses) rather than pushing supernatural readings, and she complies with the doctor’s orders to ensure Laura is never left alone. She does not undergo a dramatic inner transformation; instead her arc is one of maintained steadiness—serving as a stabilizing, pragmatic presence who absorbs and mediates the household’s rising anxiety without becoming a central investigator or believer in occult causes.

Mademoiselle De Lafontaine in pictures

Twilight beneath magnificent lime trees: Laura and her father stand close together reading a distraught, ink-stained letter while the crimson sun sinks and a thin mist creeps over the sward. Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine linger nearby, whispering about the moon as the stream flashes under an old Gothic bridge and a ruined tower silhouettes in the distance.

Sudden chaos at the roadside: a four-horse carriage lies on its side beneath a lime tree and an ancient stone cross, two horses hurled down, footmen scrambling, while a tall, pale lady in black velvet steps out, handkerchief at her face. A young girl is being lifted free as Laura's father kneels to check her pulse and Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine watch aghast; the mother whispers a quick benediction at the girl's ear, then the horses plunge and the carriage vanishes down the road.

A narrow drawbridge cuts through swirling mist toward the dark silhouette of Karnstein; the carriage has vanished into the fog, leaving a small cluster on the bridge — a bewildered young girl (Carmilla) leaning on Madame Perrodon, flanked by the stiff Mademoiselle De Lafontaine as distant servants open the castle gate. Pale morning light filters through the trees, hoof‑prints fading, the atmosphere charged with abandonment and uneasy secrecy.

Relationships

Laura She is Laura’s finishing governess and a calm companion in the household who helps care for her and observe her changing condition.
Madame Perrodon She works alongside Madame Perrodon as part of the domestic supervisory pair and shares responsibility for the young ladies.
Laura's father She supports the father’s authority in the household, participating in the drawing-room etiquette and following his directives during searches.
Carmilla She tends the stranger on arrival, takes part in questioning and searching when Carmilla disappears, and offers mundane explanations for odd occurrences.
General Spielsdorf She is present in the household that receives news from Spielsdorf and participates indirectly in the communal response to his letter and the events it prompts.

Why Mademoiselle De Lafontaine matters

Mademoiselle De Lafontaine embodies the domestic, procedural side of the schloss’s response to the uncanny. Her practical, respectable manner and occasional metaphysical curiosity highlight the story’s tension between rational explanation and fearful superstition. By offering mundane hypotheses and helping maintain household routines, she underscores how community and social roles are marshaled against inexplicable threats. Her steadiness tempers both Laura’s emotional vulnerability and the household’s temptation to leap to dramatic conclusions, emphasizing themes of feminine intimacy, social order, and the limits of institutional knowledge when confronting the intrusive, mysterious forces surrounding Carmilla.

Chapters with Mademoiselle De Lafontaine

More Carmilla characters

Laura's fatherMajor character
General SpielsdorfMajor character
LauraNarrator
CarmillaAntagonist
Madame PerrodonMajor character
Baron VordenburgMajor character
Bertha RheinfeldtMinor character
MMillarcaAntagonist

Read Carmilla illustrated

Every scene in these notes comes from the Book2Life reader, where the full public-domain text is illustrated as you read, with character portraits and narration. Free in your browser and on iPhone.

Read Carmilla free