When a Boston Brahmin moved to Paris for a four-year sojourn, due to her husband’s business, she soon became intimately acquainted with a notable family in the French aristocracy, which is, I can assure you, an expansive entity — France has doled out titles of nobility in an excessively liberal manner, and every fifth person you meet in Paris seems to have a “de la” in front of their last name.

Years after settling back into humdrum puritanical life in Beacon Hill, the Bostonian lady returned to France to attend the wedding of a descendent of the aforementioned French aristocratic family. It had been a very long engagement, because the bride had been reluctant to commit to a British boy who, like most British boys of a certain breeding, “Didn’t cuddle enough and played too much polo.” The wedding took place at the modest château of the bride’s family, and the groom’s family wanted to contribute, so they paid for the champagne, and the ‘tent,’ which was more of a temporary 500,000-dollar orangerie. In short, it was a very un-New-Englandy affair indeed.