Spectator peregrinations
Nantes, Sunday Overwhelmed by the warmth of Cyril Ray's letters, I have crossed the Channel Lucan-style for the second time in a week and sped down to Paris. (On the question of the missing Earl I noticed in the village of Clermont between Paris and Nantes that the entire gendarmerie is staffed by walking identikits of his Lordship and that there are no less than sixteen Lord Lucans in the Tour de France. Also, in a transport café, 1 saw the late Sir Gerald Nabarro speaking fluent French.) It is my most serious assignment in France since 1 came over for a weekend two years ago to play foosball in the Bois de Boulogne — only to be sent back to London from the Paris office of the Quily Express with twenty-four giant tubes of Nivea cream for Lady Beaverbrook.
This time I am the best man at a French wedding — in so far as they have best men in France, their principal function being to sign documents for Monsieur le Maire at the civil ceremony which precedes the church service.
Marriage or bust
Monsieur le Maire de Meudon (a hilly, fashionable suburb of Paris, a superior version of Hampstead) is a woman. And there is further evidence of the triumphant progress of French womankind in the ornate formal office where the mayor conducts these traditional rites. Behind Monsieur le Maire, as she really is called, and her imposing desk, is a white bust, or busts, depending on how you read this work, of Brigitte Bardot in a negligee. At this ceremony the bride also has a best man — her brother-in-law who was sitting beside her in the front row on the other side of the aisle from the bridegroom and myself. In the rows behind were the bride's father, sister, niece, uncle, a few friends and anyone else, I suppose, who
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