orchestra, and to carpets laid down from porch to altar, every detail
of pomp and ceremony depending on the price paid.

I must say that were I a French bride I should bargain for a wedding of
the first class at any sacrifice. To have the big doors of the front
portal flung open at the thrice-repeated knock of the beadle's staff;
to hear Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March' pealed from the great organ; to
march in solemn procession up the aisle, preceded by that wonderful
figure in cocked hat, red sash, pink silk stockings, and shoes
sparkling with huge buckles, all the congregation a-titter--it seems to
me it were worth while being married simply for the intoxication of
such a moment.

The third-class wedding-party, entering by a small side-door, and
passing without music to the altar, made nevertheless a pretty picture:
the bride, a handsome demoiselle de boutique, or shop assistant, in
white, with veil and wreath; behind her, girls in bright dresses
bearing enormous bouquets; bridegroom and supporters, all in spick and
span swallow-tail coats, with white ties and gloves, like beaux in a
French comedy, backwards and forwards; the priests looking gorgeous,
although in their second-best robes, their gold plates shining as they
collected the money; for whether married first, second or third class,
the Church exacts its due. I felt real commiseration for these middle-
class, evidently hard-working people, as the gold plate was presented
again and again, first, I presume, for the Church; secondly, for the
poor; thirdly, for Heaven knows what. Then two of the bridesmaids, each
taking the arm of a white-gloved, swallow-tailed cavalier, made the
round of the wedding guests, begging money of them. In fact, there
seemed no end to the giving. Small wonder that marriages are on the
decline in France! We left the bridal party still on their crimson