CHAPTER XII.

ORANGE-BLOSSOMS.

There be marriages which are made in heaven, some poet tells us, but in France they are more usually negotiated over the desk of the notary public. This is the system: Monsieur A---- wants a wife, he goes to Lawyer B----, says:

'Old friend, you are aware of my pecuniary circumstances--it is time for me to think of getting mated--do you know any lady with an eligible fortune in your _clientèle_?'

'Let me see,' says B----, taking a pinch of snuff. 'Oh! there's C----'s widow, a capital alliance; got a good annuity in her own right.'

Perhaps A---- is particularly nice, doesn't like widows.

'Then, what d'ye think of D----'s daughter?' continues the lawyer.

'Faded and ugly.'

'But rich, accomplished, and of good family.'

A---- shakes his head negatively.

'Hem, so we must have beauty! What do you say to E----'s sister?'

'Do you want me to marry my grandmother--don't like the reigning toasts of the last generation. Good-morning.'

'Stay, there's F----'s niece; that's your mark.'

'Ah! now you're getting reasonable; think I could like the woman; saw her once at the opera.'

'And she has a pretty dowry and big expectations.'

A----'s face is getting radiant.

'Where can I meet her?'

'Madame B---- will give a little _soirée_ on Thursday night; we shall invite her.'

Mdlle. F---- is trotted out like a filly at Tattersail's--her paces are shown--report favourable.

'Have you any objection to receiving Monsieur A---- as a suitor?' asks the nearest of kin.

Mademoiselle blushes, but is too well-bred to say no. Monsieur comes, dressed to death, spruce as if he stepped out of a bandbox, and mademoiselle is prepared to receive him, nearest of kin being always present. Mademoiselle has got her instructions; they were somewhat in the key of the admonition little boys make to the bears in the Jardin des Plantes: _fais le beau_, 'do the handsome.' Monsieur pays compliments to mademoiselle, always through the nearest of kin, and she, dear, well-bred creature, listens to monsieur with sweetest politeness, never betraying a vulgar desire to look into the face, much less into the heart, of the man who is to be her future guide through life, her partner in the tomb. Thus the comedy proceeds. Nearest of kin does the courting, which is not too painfully elongated. The _trousseau_ is bought and exhibited. Monsieur buys the _corbeille_, which is ordinarily expected to amount in value to one-tenth of the dowry he gets with his wife (which dowry particular care is taken to settle on the wife herself). The banns are published; one day a party appears before the Mairie, and a commercial--we beg pardon, a marriage contract is signed, a supererogatory gallop to a neighbouring church takes place to satisfy conventionalism, and Mdlle. F---- becomes Madame A----. There is no love before marriage in nine cases out of ten; of the love which grows up after marriage we are too delicate to speak. It is understood--only sometimes it will happen that monsieur has a club and madame a _cavalier eservente_. And madame, dear, well-bred creature, endeavours to make up for the reserve imposed on mademoiselle, and it is perfectly astonishing to discover what a profound knowledge of the world and its schemes and slanders the shy young maiden of last week contrives to develop all at once in her married household.

The reader will have remarked that O'Hara received the announcement that his Irish friend had succeeded in his proposal without surprise. The sole reason was that O'Hara had been living sufficiently long in France to know that marriages are arranged with the same celerity that one would toss a pancake, and that if the financial requirements are satisfied it is easy to fulfil the exigencies of affection.

During the interval that preceded the interesting ceremony (to borrow a phrase from the newspapers), which was not to take place until after Easter, the O'Hoolohan Roe was a constant visitor at the Rue de la Vieille Estrapade, only now he called himself the O'Hoolohan Dhuv, his sly countryman having bantered him on the affix Roe, which applies only to a light-complexioned, red-haired man, while he was tawny of complexion and black-haired as a Spaniard of the south. A most unmerciful bantering he did give him anent his assumption of the _The_.

'You a democrat!' he said, 'how is it that you cling to that particle?'--and then he told him the anecdotes of the English officer in charge of a detachment of troops at Bruff, one Captain Bull, upon whom the O'Grady of Kilballyowen left his card, who had scribbled The Bull of Bruff on the pasteboard he left in return; and of Sir Allan M'Nab, who had had the good taste to write on his card The _other_ M'Nab, after he had received a visit from _The_ M'Nab in Scotland. But O'Hoolohan was proof against satire, and retorted to his friend's joking that Mr. Bull and the Canadian knight were snobs, and deserved to be horse-whipped by The O'Grady and The M'Nab--that he was The O'Hoolohan, and that though his father chose to call himself Holland, he reverted to the old Irish name, O'Hoolohan, for which it was the substitute, and which meant 'proud little man.' He repeated the lines:

'By Mac and O You'll always know True Irishmen, they say; But if they lack Both O and Mac, No Irishmen are they.'

And in the end O'Hara, who was also proud of his Milesian patronymic, was obliged to admit he was right.

The banns were published at the church and at the Mairie, and at the close of the necessary three weeks, during which Berthe received a delicious fresh bouquet every morning from her lover, and then secluded herself over some mysterious female work with Caroline, the happy day (we draw on the newspapers again) arrived. Two carriages were marshalled before the municipal institution in the Place du Panthéon; two charming girls in white and a venerable, stately, white-haired man descended from the one; a man in the prime of life, with a younger companion of the same sex, both in suit of ceremony, alighted from the other. There was a brief series of interrogatories and a jotting down of signatures inside, and the party emerged, re-entered the carriages in the same order, and leisurely drove to the Church of St. Stephen of the Mount at the other side of the square. A beadle, magnificently attired, awaited and conducted them with pompous air, pounding his staff of office at intervals on the sacred pavement, to a little altar, where the priest stood ready-vested. The ceremony by which two are made one was solemnized: there was blushing as a ring was pressed on a little finger, and a few tears as a little hand parted from the tight grasp of Captain Chauvin; and then the nuptial Mass was said and the Benediction pronounced in which God is prayed to make the newly-wedded amiable to her husband as Rachel, wise as Rebecca, and faithful as Sarah. Again the party emerged, but this time Captain Chauvin, Caroline, and O'Hara entered the second carriage together, for the first was occupied by Monsieur and Madame O'Hoolohan.

Half an hour afterwards there was solemn silence in the apartment in the Rue de la Vieille Estrapade, for Mr. Manus O'Hara, in a particularly neat and appropriate speech, had proposed the memory of the Man, and Captain Chauvin was crying, but--the wicked old man!--there was more gladness than sorrow in his tears. The Irish are born orators. Nobody who heard the brilliant discourse in which Monsieur O'Hoolohan gave France, and eulogized the _entente cordiale_ which had been made that morning before the altar between it and Ireland, could deny that fact. His voice, like O'Brien's of the Irish Brigade, in the lyric of Thomas Davis, was 'hoarse with joy,' as he fondly regarded his bride, and wound up a florid and flourishing peroration by a marked allusion to future alliances between the countries which he hoped to live to see, illustrated by playful winks at O'Hara and the brunette. But the brunette kept never minding, and O'Hara's hand rose involuntarily to his shirt-bosom, under which reposed a certain tress of woman's hair. As for Pat, who was among the guests, he had feasted so heartily in honour of the occasion that he fell asleep while his master was on his legs.