Page 2291 - les-miserables
P. 2291
CHAPTER I
THE 16TH OF
FEBRUARY, 1833
The night of the 16th to the 17th of February, 1833, was a
blessed night. Above its shadows heaven stood open. It was
the wedding night of Marius and Cosette.
The day had been adorable.
It had not been the grand festival dreamed by the grand-
father, a fairy spectacle, with a confusion of cherubim and
Cupids over the heads of the bridal pair, a marriage worthy
to form the subject of a painting to be placed over a door;
but it had been sweet and smiling.
The manner of marriage in 1833 was not the same as it
is to-day. France had not yet borrowed from England that
supreme delicacy of carrying off one’s wife, of fleeing, on
coming out of church, of hiding oneself with shame from
one’s happiness, and of combining the ways of a bankrupt
with the delights of the Song of Songs. People had not yet
grasped to the full the chastity, exquisiteness, and decency
of jolting their paradise in a posting-chaise, of breaking up
their mystery with clic-clacs, of taking for a nuptial bed the
2291
