"But you would not dance before dinner?"
"Eh, mon Dieu! I would dance before breakfast, if I had the chance. Come along. If we do not make haste, we may miss them."
I rose, feeling, and I daresay, looking, like a martyr; and we went down again into the town.
There we inquired of the first person who seemed likely to know--he was a dapper hairdresser, standing at his shop-door with his hands in his apron pockets and a comb behind his ear--and were told that the wedding-party had just passed through the village, on their way to the Chateau of Saint Aulaire.
"The Chateau of St. Aulaire!" said Josephine. "What are they going to do there? What is there to see?"
"It is an ancient mansion, Mademoiselle, much visited by strangers," replied the hairdresser with exceeding politeness. "Worthy of Mademoiselle's distinguished attention--and Monsieur's. Contains old furniture, old paintings, old china--stands in an extensive park--one of the lions of this neighborhood, Mademoiselle--also Monsieur."
"To whom does it belong?" I asked, somewhat interested in this account.
"That, Monsieur, is a question difficult to answer," replied the fluent hairdresser, running his fingers through his locks and dispersing a gentle odor of rose-oil. "It was formerly the property of the ancient family of Saint Aulaire. The last Marquis de Saint Aulaire, with his wife and family, were guillotined in 1793. Some say that the young heir was saved; and an individual asserting himself to be that heir did actually put forward a claim to the estate, some twenty, or five-and-twenty years ago, but lost his cause for want of sufficient proof. In the meantime, it had passed into the hands of a wealthy republican family, descended, it is said, from General Dumouriez. This family held it till within the last four years, when two or three fresh claimants came forward; so that it is now the object of a lawsuit which may last till every brick of it falls to ruin, and every tree about it withers away. At present, a man and his wife have charge of the place, and visitors are permitted to see it any day between twelve and four."
"I should like to see the old place," said I.
"And I should like to see how the bride is dressed," said Josephine, "and if the bridegroom is handsome."