On this day 40 years ago, Joëlle Marie Simone Poupard and Colin John Randall walked up the aisle of l'église Sainte-Jeanne d'Arc in Le Mans, made their vows and left for the sumptuous banquet awaiting some of the good folk of La Sarthe (and Shildon, County Durham).
And some of those good folk began plotting observation of that grand old French tradition of pursuing bride and groom to their hotel to make an unholy racket beneath their window before demanding onion soup and Calvados in the morning.
It follows that if Mlle Poupard, as was, and Mr Randall remain alive and married to each other, they are today celebrating their ruby wedding anniversary.
They are indeed.
When I was a young reporter, the local paper would often have to turn away families wanting ruby wedding stories and photographs to appear. Such events were, happily enough, 10 a penny; we made gold the cut-off point and even they came around a little too often to seem like real news as opposed to personal advertising.
These days, it is safe to assume, you might expect to qualify for a glowing account in the local rag on reaching a full 40 minutes of wedded bliss. Forty months would surely merit a letter from the Queen.
So I am mightily chuffed to have my own ruby - the old-fashioned variety, none of your minutes or months - to record.
Joëlle would want this tape-recorded, to play back at me next time I whinged about anything, but she is and has always been a great wife, a tower of strength and a fabulous woman. As mother and grandmother, she is second to none. She worries, as the French do, about how she looks and simply doesn't realise how unwarranted those concerns are. Et je l'aime - voila.
Some say she has worn rather better that her other half ..
I cannot think why that should be the case ...
But it is undoubtedly true that the president of the Salut! empire scarcely deserves to call himself Joëlle's husband.
He is proud, for all that, to be able to do so and will be trying his damndest in Karangasem, Bali to make it a special day (not least because there's match coming up on Saturday and he may need a passout to watch it on the box in some bar).
I have described our marriage as a prolongation of the 100 years war; the comparison may even crop up in this piece from a few years ago in the Telegraph. The French and English are many more miles/km apart than the 21/34 that separate their countries. But vive la difference; if we've managed to get this far, there must be reasons for it.
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