Part 53

"What do divorcées do with their wedding presents?" has been a favourite conundrum of late, especially with those sent by the friends of the husband.

If an evening wedding takes place in a church those who are asked to the house afterwards should go without bonnets. Catholic ladies, however, must always cover their heads in church; so they throw a light lace or mantilla over the head.

It is not often that the bride dances at her own wedding, but there is no reason why she should not.

"'Tis custom that makes cowards of us all." One brave girl was married on a Saturday in May, thus violating all the old saws and superstitions. She has been happy ever afterwards. Marriages in May used to be said to lead to poverty. It is the month of Mary, the Virgin, therefore Catholics object.

One still braver bride chose Friday; this is hangman's day, and also the day of the crucifixion, therefore considered unlucky by the larger portion of the human race.

However, marriage is lucky or unlucky as the blind goddess pleases; no foresight of ours can make it a certainty. Sometimes two very doubtful characters make each other better, and live happily; again two very fine characters but help to sublimate each other's misery. Perhaps no more hopeless picture of this failure was ever painted than the misery of Caroline and Robert Elsmere, in that masterly novel which led you nowhere.

There is a capital description of a French bourgeoise wedding in one of Daudet's novels:--

"The least details of this important day were forever engraved on Risler's mind.

"He saw himself at daybreak pacing his bachelor chamber, already shaved and dressed, with two pairs of white gloves in his pocket. Then came the gala carriages, and in the first one, the one with white horses, white reins, and a lining of yellow satin, his bride's veil floated like a cloud.

"Then the entrance to the church, two by two, with this white cloud always at their head, floating, light, gleaming; the organ, the verger, the sermon of the curé, the tapers twinkling like jewels, the spring toilets, and all the world in the sacristie--the little white cloud lost, engulfed, surrounded, embraced, while the groom shook hands with the representatives of the great Parisian firms assembled in his honour; and the grand swell of the organ at the end, more solemn because the doors of the church were wide open so that the whole quarter took part in the family ceremony; the noises of the street as the cortège passed out, the exclamations of the lookers-on,--a burnisher in a lustring apron crying aloud, 'The groom is not handsome, but the bride is stunning,'--all this is what makes one proud when he is a bridegroom.

"Then the breakfast at the works, in a room ornamented with hangings and flowers; the stroll in the Bois, a concession to the bride's mother, Madame Chèbe, who in her position as a Parisian bourgeoise would not have considered her daughter married without the round of the lake and a visit to the cascade; then the return for dinner just as the lights were appearing on the Boulevard, where every one turned to see the wedding party, a true, well-appointed party, as it passed in a procession of liveried carriages to the very steps of the Café Vefour.

"It was all like a dream.

"Now, dulled by fatigue and happiness, the worthy Risler looked dreamily at the great table of twenty-five covers, with a horseshoe at each end. Around it were well-known, smiling faces in whose eyes he seemed to see his own happiness reflected. Little waves of conversation from the different groups drifted across the table; faces were turned toward one another. You could see here the white cuffs of a black suit behind a basket of asclepias, here the laughing face of a girl above a dish of confections. The faces of the guests were half hidden behind the flowers and the dessert; all around the board were gayety, light, and colour.

"Yes, Risler was happy.

"Aside from his brother Franz, all whom he loved were there. First and foremost, facing him, was Sidonie,--yesterday the little Sidonie, to-day his wife. She had laid aside her veil for dinner, she had emerged from the white cloud.

"Now in her silken gown, white and simple, her charming face seemed more clear and sweet under the carefully arranged bridal wreath.

"By the side of Risler sat Madame Chèbe, the mother of the bride, who shone and glistened in a dress of green satin gleaming like a shield. Since morning all the thoughts of the good woman had been as brilliant as her robe. Every moment she had said to herself, 'My daughter is marrying Fremont and Risler,'--because in her mind it was not Risler whom her daughter married, but the whole establishment.

"All at once came that little movement among the guests that announces their leaving the table,--the rustle of silks, the noise of chairs, the last words of talk, laughter broken off. Then they all passed into the grand salon, where those invited were arriving in crowds, and, while the orchestra tuned their instruments, the men with glass in eye paraded before the young girls all dressed in white and impatient to begin."

HOW ROYALTY ENTERTAINS.

Stand back, and let the King go by.--OLD PLAY.

"Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers."

When we approach the subject of royal entertainments, we cannot but feel that the best of us are at a disadvantage. Princes have palaces and retainers furnished for them. They have a purse which knows no end. They are either by the divine right, or by lucky chance, the personages of the hour! It is only when one of them loses his head, or is forced to abdicate, or falls by the assassin's dagger, that they approach at all our common humanity.

Doubtless to them, entertaining, being a perfunctory affair, becomes very tedious. Pomp is not an amusing circumstance and they get so tired of it all that when off duty kings and queens are usually the most plainly dressed and the most simple of mortals. The "age of strut" has passed away. No one cares to assume the puffiness of Louis XIV. or George IV.

Royal entertainments, however, have this advantage, they open to the observer the historical palace, and the pictures, gems of art, and interesting collections of which palaces are the great conservators.

It would seem that Louis XIV., called le Grand Monarque, Louis the Magnificent, was a master of the art of entertaining. Under him the science of giving banquets received, in common with the other sciences, a great progressive impulse. There still remains some memory of those festivals, which all Europe went to see, and those tournaments, where for the last time shone lances and knightly suits of armour. The festivals always ended with a sumptuous banquet, where were displayed huge centre-pieces of gold and silver, painting, sculpture, and enamel, all laudatory of the hero of the occasion.

This fashion made the fame of Benvenuto Cellini in the previous century. To-day, monarchs content themselves with having these centre-pieces made of cake, sugar, or ices. There will be no record of their great feasts for future ages.

Toward the end of the reign of Louis XIV., the cook, the cordon bleu, received favourable notice; his name was written beside that of his patron; he was called in after dinner. It is mentioned in some of the English memoirs that this fashion was not unknown so lately as fifty years ago in great houses in England, where the cook was called in, in his white cap and apron, publicly thanked for his efforts, and a glass of wine offered him by his master, all the company drinking his health. This must have had an excellent effect on the art of gastronomy.

Madame de Maintenon, whose gloomy sway over the old king reduced the gay court to the loneliness of an empty cathedral, threw a wet napkin on the science of good eating, and put out the kitchen fires for a season.