The dance which follows this dinner lasts until morning, and lucky are the bride and groom if they can escape by midnight.
But mild indeed are these bourgeois weddings of the city compared with those of the well-to-do peasants! These include festivities which last three days, most of which time is spent at table, where beef is followed by veal, veal by mutton, mutton by rabbit, rabbit by chicken, and chicken by pork, and so on through the list of viands. This continuous feast is only made possible by consuming from time to time a stiff glass of applejack.
“Vive la mariée!” cry a dozen overjoyous ones in front of a café at St. Cloud as my voiture tries to pass. My cocher grins and cracks his whip. The best man, a soldier, the groom and a dozen others, noisy with the sound wine of Touraine, link arms in front of my rawboned steed, yelling:
“You cannot pass, monsieur, unless you cry Vive la mariée!”
“Vive la mariée!” I cry, loudly as I can, in my ineradicable accent.
There is a welcoming shout from the wedding party. The bride throws me a kiss. The little cousins and cousines and the beau-frère and belle-mère wave their handkerchiefs in acknowledgment, a dozen tumblers of red wine are offered to me, and as many are thrust at the fat cocher who is now waving his glazed hat in the air with enthusiasm.
“Vive la République! Vive la mariée! Vive la France!” come from a score of throats as I am allowed to proceed. As we rattle up a crooked street, the din of the festivity grows fainter and fainter in the distance, now I hear faintly the indistinct blare of the band playing below for the dance, and now and then a cheer, stronger than the others, floats up from the far-away café: “Vive la mariée!”
Dining in the open air is brought to its perfection in the Bois de Boulogne.
The Chalet du Touring Club, at the entrance of the Bois, is a popular rendezvous for the bicycling Mimis and the Faustines, and their admirers. At the apéritif hour in the afternoon, this cosmopolitan café under the trees is crowded with a mixed assemblage. It is an excellent place in which to breakfast well and at a moderate price.
The Pavillon Chinois, with its picturesque pagoda-like roof, is frequented by a richer class.