She is married in due time, but she has very little to do with it. A husband is selected for her, and she accepts him scarcely knowing or hardly caring who it is she is to wed, for she wants that liberty which in France comes with marriage, and marriage only. She knows that a wife may do that which a maiden may not--that matrimony means in France what it does not in any other country--almost absolute freedom. Once married, the mother washes her hands of her, considering that she has discharged her whole duty by her child. [Illustration: PARIS UNDERGROUND--MAKING THE TOUR OF THE SEWERS.] The whole idea of French matrimony from the girl's standpoint is well illustrated in the picture of the French caricaturist. Two girls are discussing the approaching marriage of one of them. The bargained-for girl exclaims lugubriously, "But I love Henri!" "Very good, my child," replies her elder and wiser friend, "you _love_ Henri; then _marry_ Alphonse." Her marrying Alphonse made love for Henri possible. It was all there in one small picture and two lines of print, but a page of small type could not explain the situation more clearly. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE PARIS BOURSE.] [Sidenote: BARGAIN AND SALE.] Marriages are arranged by the parents of the parties, and an exceedingly curious performance it is. The girl's parents actually buy her a husband. The two old cats who have one a son and the other a daughter, meet like two gray-headed diplomatists, and there ensues a series of negotiations that would put to shame traders in anything else. The girl has to have a _dot_, which is to say, a dowry, and the son must have money or property settled upon him. The mother of the girl proposes to give her one hundred thousand francs as the _dot_. The mother of the son insists that it is not enough, and enlarges upon the perfections of the young man. He is educated, he is polished, he is handsome, he is amiable. He isn't a brute who would make a wife miserable; not he. Clearly one hundred thousand francs is not enough for such a paragon. The mother of the girl strikes in. The girl is the handsomest in Paris, and has had every advantage. She is a lady, and would make a desirable addition to the house of any man in Paris; but finally she names one hundred and ten thousand francs. It will not do. "_Mon dieu!_" exclaims the mother, "you must remember I have three other daughters to provide for, and the estate is not large. If I give one hundred and ten thousand francs to one, what will become of the others? There is reason in all things, even in marrying off a daughter!" And thus they haggle and haggle, just as though they were trading horses, until finally it is fixed. The happy pair are permitted to see each other; so much is settled upon the young man and so much upon the girl, and they are married, and by the laws of France and the sanction of the holy church, are man and wife. They are man and wife legally but in no other sense.