Daughter of Frederick Speight Blount and Emily (James) Blount.
Married 29 May 1865 Paris, France to Henri Arnous de Riviere (1828-1909), Baron de Riviere, son of William Arnous Riviere.
Some family trees give her birth date as March 31, 1841. Her gravestone says April 1, 1841.

Her father was a 4th cousin of Barbara Blount Gaines, daughter of the second governor of Tennessee and the second wife of General Edmund Pendleton Gaines of Mobile, a War of 1812 hero and later U.S. Congressman. Gen. Gaines' brother, Col. George Strother Gaines, sold his home "Gaineswood," at Demopolis, to Gen. Nathan Bryan Whitfield, a first cousin of Emily Blount's paternal grandmother, Rachel Whitfield (Heritage) Bryan Blount.

Capt. Henry (Harry) Maury and Captain de Riviere, later called the baron, fought a duel in 1858 at Pascagoula. When the wounded Riviere was being carried back to Mobile, the convoy traveled on Spring Hill Avenue and passed directly by the Blount home, which then stood at the southwest corner of Spring Hill Avenue and Lafayette Street .Mrs. Emily J. Blount went out and stopped the procession, prevailing upon its members to leave the wounded man to convalesce in her home. Capt. de Riviere had been Miss Emily Blount's French teacher and was well known in the Blount home up to this time. After Miss Blount and the baron eloped, along with Emily's mother, to New Orleans, then to Havana and ultimately New York and were arrested at Hoboken, New Jersey.

Recollections of a Virginian in the Mexican, Indian, and Civil Wars (1894) by General Dabney Herndon Maury, cousin of Capt. Maury, states: "After the close of the troubles in Nicaragua, a Captain Henri de Riviere, who had been dismissed from the French army and had cast his lot with General Walker's expedition, returned with the surviving adventurers to Mobile, and became a favorite in the gay society there. His impudent deportment aroused Henry's indignation, and a duel resulted. A steamer took the duelists down to Pascagoula. Doctors Knott and (Frank A.) Ross went along as surgeons, and a many gentlemen of Mobile, who desired "to see Harry shoot the Frenchman."

I was told by several eye-witnesses the remarkable history of this curious affair. The ground was near the residence of the proprietor, and a hammock was swinging on the veranda. Captain de Riviere advanced to Captain Maury and asked him if he might take and hour's nap in that hammock, as he felt very nervous. His request was granted, and his
second aroused him at the end of the hour. He arose apparently quite refreshed, and took his place for the duel. They were to begin firing revolvers at twelve paces, to advance a pace after each shot, and stop if either fell. At the first shot, the Frenchman staggered backwards
and seemed about to fall. His antagonist lowered his pistol, but kept his thumb upon the hammer and his eye upon the enemy, whom he detected in the act of cocking his pistol, but before he could raise it and fire, Maury shot him in the mouth. He was taken to the home of a gentleman in Mobile, whose sympathetic wife and beautiful daughter cared for him during some weeks.

"When he had recovered sufficiently to travel, he departed, accompanied by his devoted nurses. The head of the family went in pursuit of them, reaching Havana just after they had left for Nassau, and arriving at Nassau after they sailed for New York. In New York their escapade was arrested by a lady who came out of the convent and claimed Captain Henri de Riviere as her lawfully wedded spouse. Then at last the bereft husband and father recovered his delinquent family, and returned to Mobile. Towards the close of the war between the States, the Marquis de Riviere died in France, leaving his great fortune to his brother, Captain de Riviere. The head of the enamored family still living in Mobile assented to the urgent request of the new marquis that he would escort his wife and daughter to Paris, where the latter became the Marquise de Riviere. They lived in great splendor till the Franco-Prussian War, when the marquis was killed in battle."

Eventually Emily returned to the States with her two younger children, Henri and Sabine. She was a popular member of Mobile society and attended many functions and parties until her death in 1917. She attended a reception on Dec. 13, 1906, at 910 Government Street hosted by R.V. Taylor and Mrs. Helen Buck Taylor, where her name is shown as "Madame de Riviere" on the guest registry.

She is buried next to her daughter Sabine in the Henry Hitchcock plot, not far from Harry Maury.

See: Gentlemen, Swords and Pistols (1951) by Harnett T. Kane, pp.3-22; also Magnolia Messenger, Summer 2011 pp.1-6.