Elle Emilie Nicoline
Sobriquet: Elle
Appearance: Elle is probably the most elegant Kindred female of Paris. Always choosing her clothing with style, she can even make herself appear younger or older than her real apparent age only by choice of the clothes, make-up, jewelry and hair combing.
She favors black, or blood-red roses, and is rarely seen without one of them (she loves their perfume...).
She's always dressed for the situation, and most of the time, all male stares converge to her. She is gracious, moves in fluid motions that would be mistakenly called feline grace. The truth is that Elle is working on her appearance and style since (and even before) her Embrace. Her grace is simply Feminine, with a capital F.
Behavior: Seeing Elle is like looking a movie in slow motion. Every movement is graceful, and every expression of her lovely feature is worthy of a photography, painting or sculpting. She works on this illusion, and enhance its effects with her soft voice. If a Parisian Kindred must be called siren, then Elle is this Siren.
She always talk without contempt to others, even when using Esprit and ridiculing him. She is seen as a poseur, and as it is part of her chosen art, she accepts it and likes to appear as such. But she knows she is deadly.
She likes to act as a careless young when with Neonates and Ancillae, but most Elders knows it is a facade and still wonders the amount of influence she has over Villon...
And she likes it...
History: Francois Villon is known for his feminine conquests since the first night of his Embrace. He had been the lover of Helena of Troy, Violetta, ex-Toreador Justicar, among others. Elle was discovered just before the beginning of the 18th Century, while Louis Sun King XIV ruled France, and while Beatrix was still Prince of Paris, and Villon her lawful councilor.
She was still twelve when he saw her, but he immediately fell in love, charmed by her blue eyes and white-blond hair. Fearing such a beauty would be wasted if not protected, he raised her as he would have a rose: He took her from her Bourgeois milieu, gave her the best teachers, in history, philosophy (it was the Century of Light!), music and even painting. So Elle grew in a very protected milieu, and in the same time, too near of the Kindred society to not be affected.
She was ghouled her first night with her beautiful protector and soon after, was Embraced with the mild benediction of Beatrix: Elle was beautiful, more than any living woman in her century, she was intelligent, and new the basis of drawing, painting and music, but she had no real artistic talent. Villon was said he would regret it soon.
And in some way, he did regret: She was a Poseuse, and some Toreador, among them Villon's enemies, jealous of his position, started to whisper about Villon's foolishness.
If Elle wasn't an artist, she had an acute mind, and had grown among the Kindred society. So she learned as natural most the things the Kindred take years to accept...
Villon, and the others were mistaken: She was an artist. At first, it was simple things, words in the end of some soirées, but with time, she grew more confident in her own abilities, and she finally made an art of Intrigue. In the 19th century, her secret control over the mortal institutions of Paris surprised Villon: What was believed to be a poseur made a point to intrigue against Villon's enemies in the most artful way, and even if her love affair will the Prince of Paris had cooled somewhat, she became his secret third lieutenant (the first being Lazlo, the Duc of the Toreador, the second being Ivan, Master of the Masques, and his fourth being her childe Alexis, Master of the Veilleurs.
Officially, she was given the responsibility to ensure the well-being of the French museums, but her powers grew with time, and extends now to the protection of French artworks, or the buying of artworks from all the world and their installation in French museums (becoming so, in Villon's eyes, French artworks!).
While she have not the power of Alexis, Ivan, or Lazlo, and works officially under Lazlo's jurisdiction, she was seen using their resources (Masques, Veilleurs, Louvre's employees) to succeed in her missions. Officially, she must protect the First Edict of Villon: The Art.
Recent Events: Elle is the French word for She, and this name, chosen by Villon for her is really adapted, as she is for most (Toreador) Kindred the incarnation of desire. She knows how to use and combine her Dementation and Mytherceria Disciplines to enhance her already high seduction power...
Her Blasée Merit (see Clanbook: Toreador) immunizes her to Presence powers. The Blood Bond she felt for Villon is now weakened by the centuries (She is now considered Bonded at 1/3). She still have a phobia of water, like lakes, rivers, swimming pools (i.e.: anything greater than a bath tub) from the time she was alive and risked drowning in Versailles' lake. She still doesn't know how to swim (and will probably never learn).
She is believed to have been Arnaud's lover before the 1789 Revolution, and is the secret muse of more than one Kindred, most of them, Toreador. But she is still single. Villon's interest for her changed from pure love to the affection a proud father can feel for his beloved daughter.
She has no Elder Status because no one knows the game she's really playing, but should she be discovered, it would raise up to 1 or 2.
She has been the second Elder (the first being Arnaud) to feel the effects of the new appearance of Catherine. While she is feels attracted to her in a physical sense, she keeps the control of herself. Still, Cath's curious mentality fascinates the Toreador...
Elle discovered foreign influence within Parisian mortal institutions. She is working hard to find to remove the corrupted administrators. Her suspicions leads her to think St Just is perhaps the one behind it, but she has still difficulties to believe it. Labienus is another possibility as he is known to have some contacts within the french army, despite Villon's interdiction of such power base building.
Nonetheless, she was behind the changes within the SDECE which became soon after the DGSE
Credit to the Author: https://augias.org/pbn/elle.htm
