the left a door opened and I
caught a glimpse of a low dark room in which a dozen fellows belonging
to the National Guard were smoking black pipes. My first thought on
entering this barrack-room was that I had done wisely in not putting on
my gray dress. We ascended the staircase and I saw a long, dirty, dim
passage, with a number of half-glass doors, on which I read: "Burials.
Turn the handle," "Expropriations," "Deaths. Knock loudly," "Inquiries,"
"Births," "Public Health," etc., and at length "Marriages."

We entered in company with a small lad who was carrying a bottle of
ink; the atmosphere was thick, heavy, and hot, and made one feel ill.
Happily, an attendant in a blue livery, resembling in appearance the
soldiers I had seen below, stepped forward to ask us to excuse him for
not having at once ushered us into the Mayor's drawing-room, which is no
other than the first-class waiting-room. I darted into it as one jumps
into a cab when it begins to rain suddenly. Almost immediately two
serious persons, one of whom greatly resembled the old cashier at the
Petit-Saint-Thomas, brought in two registers, and, opening them, wrote
for some time; only stopping occasionally to ask the name, age,
and baptismal names of both of us, then, saying to themselves,
"Semi-colon... between the aforesaid... fresh paragraph, etc., etc."

When he had done, the one like the man cashier at the Petit-Saint-Thomas
read aloud, through his nose, that which he had put down, and of which I
could understand nothing, except that my name was several times repeated
as well as that of the other "aforesaid." A pen was handed to us and we
signed. Voila.

"Is it over?" said I to Georges, who to my great surprise was very pale.

"Not yet, dear," said he; "we must now go into the hall, where the
marriage ceremony takes place."

We entered a large, empty hall with bare walls; a bust of the Emperor
was at the farther end over a raised platform, some armchairs, and some
benches behind them, and dust upon everything. I must have been in a
wrong mood, for it seemed to me I was entering the waiting-room at a
railway-station; nor could I help looking at my aunts, who were very
merry, over the empty chairs. The gentlemen, who no doubt affected not
to think as we did, were, on the contrary, all very serious, and I could
discern very well that Georges was actually trembling. At length the
Mayor came in by a little door and appeared before us, awkward and podgy