Strict Roman Catholics do not recognise the civil contract beyond going through the required legal ceremony. The banns, stating several personal particulars regarding the parents as well as the contracting parties, are put up at the _mairie_ ten days before the marriage can be performed. If the betrothed pair have not reached the age of thirty, they must have the consent of their parents, but over twenty-one they are able to obtain that consent through a legal process at the office of a certified notary. Even extreme action of this character does not entail total loss of a certain portion of the parental inheritance, for the Civil Code does not permit parents to leave more than a proportion to strangers. One-half must fall to the children's share. Quite recently an example of the small satisfaction this may cause to the recipients came to light. An aged grandparent's estate produced a sum of 100 francs, to be divided equally between four legatees. The legal expenses entailed in certifying the status of each party and other matters ran up to such a large sum that the surplus divisible was barely 20 francs. On the appointed day the wedding party assembles at the _mairie_, where the mayor, after reading to the couple that portion of the Civil Code relating to the duties of the married state, hears their declaration and the permission of the parents, after which both parties exchange wedding rings and are pronounced man and wife. The register having been signed, first by the wife and then by the husband, the civil ceremony is complete, and in Republican society the wedded pair as a rule trouble themselves not at all about the attitude of the Church to the contract they have made. Many, however, as already stated, do not regard this as the real wedding, and the bride and bridegroom remain apart until the next day, or perhaps two or three days later, when the religious ceremony is performed in a church. There the wedding rings are blessed before being put on, and the completion of the religious ceremony is marked by the presentation of a tray for offerings. One cannot be very long in a French church without this opportunity presenting itself. The writer has vivid recollections of his almost precipitate retreat from the Madeleine after he had been present for a short time at a service in that classic church on the occasion of his first visit to Paris. His memory recalls how cheerfully he paid for his seat for the first time, how he produced another coin when, with a charming smile, a young woman applied for a second alms, and how, when a third bag was placed before him with the words _pour les pauvres_, he found a sou, and in a few moments had, with a sigh of relief, exchanged the Gregorian solemnities of the great church for the rattle and stir of the _Boulevard des Capucines_.