Nearly every Sunday after harvest-time there will be a village wedding, where we may see the bride and bridegroom coming to take 'the first sacrament;' seated in a prominent place in front of the altar, and receiving the elements before the rest of the congregation, the bride placing a white favour on the basket which contains the consecrated bread, and afterwards coming from the church, the bride with a cap nearly a foot high, the bridegroom wearing a dress coat, with a tremendous bouquet, and a wedding-ring on his fore-finger; and, if we stand near the church porch, we may be deafened with a salute fired by the villagers in honour of the occasion, and overwhelmed by the eloquence of the 'best man,' who takes this opportunity of delivering a speech; and finally, the bells will ring out with such familiar tone that we can hardly realise that we are in France.[55]
These people are of the labouring class, but they have some money to 'commence life' with; the poorest girls seldom marry without a portion (indeed, so important is this considered amongst them that there are societies for providing portions for the unendowed), and they are, with few exceptions, provident and happy in married life. They are so in the country at least, in spite of all that has been said and written to the contrary. A lady who has had five-and-twenty years' acquaintance with French society, both in town and country, assures us that 'the stereotyped literary and dramatic view of French married life is wickedly false.' The corruption of morals, she says, which so generally prevails in Paris, and which has been so systematically aggravated by the luxury and extravagance of the second Empire, has emboldened writers to foist these false pictures of married life on the world.
But we, as travellers, must not enter deeply into these questions; our business is, as usual, principally with their picturesque aspect. And there is plenty to see; a few miles from us there is the little town of Pont l'Evêque; and of course there is a fête going on. Let us glance at the official programme for the day:--
'At 10 A.M., agricultural and horticultural meetings.
From 11 to 12, musical mass; several pieces to be performed by the band of the 19th Regiment.