In that age of ceremony marriage was quite as much a formal matter as other affairs of life. The young Marquis's guardians, according to the custom of the time, immediately looked about for a girl of equal rank who might marry their boy. They decided on little Marie Adrienne de Noailles, daughter of a great peer of France. The girl was only twelve years old, and her mother was very unwilling to have her married to a boy whose character was unformed, and whose fortune would allow him to become as wild as he chose. Her father, however, liked the match, and her mother finally agreed, insisting, however, that the children should wait two years before their wedding. When these arrangements had all been made and the engagement was formally announced, the boy Marquis was taken to call at the house of his future wife, and was presented to her in the garden. Formal paths wound under a row of chestnut-trees, carefully tended flower-beds were arranged with mathematical precision, a few peacocks strutted across the lawn, and here and there a marble statue or a great stone jar from Italy gave a classic touch to the scene. The small boy, dressed in court clothes of velvet, his fair hair in long curls, his three-cornered hat held beneath his arm, his court rapier hanging at his side, bright silver buckles at knees and on shoes, advanced down the walk to the little lady who was waiting for him. She was in flowered satin, her long, yellow hair falling to her shoulders, her light-blue eyes looking timidly at the boy, and her pale cheeks flushing as he approached. As he stood before her, she held out her hand, and he delicately lifted it with his and touched his lips to her fingers. She blushed redder, then he paid her a few stately compliments, and they walked down the path laughing shyly at this new intimacy. She had seen few boys before, and he had known few girls, and yet their guardians had destined them for man and wife. It was a curious, old-world picture that the two children made, but the scene was quite characteristic of the age. At the time he lived at Versailles and made one of the group about the little King and Queen, the guardians of the young Marquis expected to find him growing more and more popular with the royal court, and they were very much surprised when they learned how reserved he was becoming and how little he seemed interested in the pursuits of his age. When they heard of his being one of the ringleaders at the Queen's party, they were horrified. They determined to try and make him more like themselves, and so sought to get him a place in the household of one of the royal family, the Duc de Provence.