[Illustration: _Native Types in the Sologne_] The Sologne, like most of the other of the _petits pays_ of France, is prolific in superstitions and traditionary customs, and here for some reason they deal largely of the marriage state. When the _paysan solognais_ marries, he takes good care to press the marriage-ring well up to the third joint of his spouse's finger, "else she will be the master of the house," which is about as well as the thing can be expressed in English. It seems a simple precaution, and any one so minded might well do the same under similar circumstances, provided he thinks the proceeding efficacious. Again, during the marriage ceremony itself, each of the parties most interested bears a lighted wax taper, with the belief that whichever first burns out, so will its bearer die first. It's a gruesome thought, perhaps, but it gives one an inkling of who stands the best chance of inheriting the other's goods, which is what matches are sometimes made for. The marriage ceremony in the Sologne is a great and very public function. Intimates, friends, acquaintances, and any of the neighbouring populace who may not otherwise be occupied, attend, and eat, drink, and ultimately get merry. But they have a sort of process of each paying his or her own way; at least a collection is taken up to pay for the entertainment, for the Sologne peasant would otherwise start his married life in a state of bankruptcy from which it would take him a long time to recover. The collection is made with considerable _éclat_ and has all the elements of picturesqueness that one usually associates with the wedding processions that one sees on the comic-opera stage. A sort of nuptial bouquet--a great bunch of field flowers--is handed round from one guest to another, and for a sniff of their fragrance and a participation in the collation which is to come, they make an offering, dropping much or little into a golden (not gold) goblet which is passed around by the bride herself. In the Sologne there is (or was, for the writer has never seen it) another singular custom of the marriage service--not really a part of the churchly office, but a sort of practical indorsement of the actuality of it all. The bride and groom are both pricked with a needle until the blood runs, to demonstrate that neither the man nor the woman is insensible or dreaming as to the purport of the ceremony about to take place. As every French marriage is at the Mairie, as well as being held in church, this double ceremony (and the blood-letting as well) must make a very hard and fast agreement. Perhaps it might be tried elsewhere with advantage. Montrichard, on the Cher, is on the borderland between the Blaisois and Touraine. Its donjon announces itself from afar as a magnificent feudal ruin. The town is moreover most curious and original, the great rectangular donjon rising high into the sky above a series of cliff-dwellers' chalk-cut homes, in truly weird fashion.