It was a week after Daniel’s departure, a Wednesday, and about half-
past eleven o’clock.
Some thirty carriages, the most elegant, by all means, that Paris could
boast of, were standing alongside of the Church of St. Clothilda. In the
pretty little square before the building, some hundred and fifty or two
hundred idlers were waiting with open mouths. The passers-by, noticing
the crowd, went up and asked,--
“What is going on?”
“A wedding,” was the answer.
“And a grand wedding, apparently.”
“Why, the grandest thing you ever saw. It is a nobleman, and an
immensely rich one, who is going to be married,--Count Ville-Handry.
He marries an American lady. They have been in the church now for some
time, and they will soon come out again.”
Under the porch a dozen men, in the orthodox black costume, with yellow
kid gloves, and white cravats showing under their overcoats, evidently
men belonging to the wedding-party, were chatting merrily while they
were waiting for the end of the ceremony. If they were amused, they
hardly showed it; for some made an effort to hide their yawning, while
others kept up a broken conversation, when a small _coupe_ drove up, and
stopped at the gate.
“Gentlemen,” said a young man, “I announce M. de Brevan.”
It was he really.
He stepped leisurely out of his carriage, and came up in his usual
phlegmatic manner. He knew the majority, perhaps, of the young men in
the crowd; and so he commenced at once shaking hands all around, and
then said in an easy tone of voice,--
“Who has seen the bride?”
“I!” replied an old beau, whose perpetual smile displayed all the
thirty-two teeth he owed to the dentist.
“Well, what do you think of her?”
“She is always sublime in her beauty, my dear. When she walked up the
aisle to kneel down at the altar, a murmur of admiration followed her
all the way. Upon my word of honor, I thought they would applaud.”