As news emerged from the Élysée Palace that French President Nicolas Sarkozy, 53, and Carla Bruni, the 40-year-old pop star and former model, had been married on the weekend, there were barbs, not confetti, being tossed.
You'd think the lovebirds had signed up for a 40-piece set of caricature and derision at some wedding registry. Their new monikers could be President Bling-Bling and First Lady Bonbon.
This less-than-felicitous wedding reaction isn't surprising, though.
It's true that Mr. Sarkozy, whose personality has been characterized (by the ex, natch) as brutish and controlling, could be (and has been) accused of using his private life to obscure failures of his government.
Some suggest the new marriage is politically motivated amid hopeful talk about a possible "Carla effect" on his waning popularity in the French polls.
But criticism arises for a much more common reason. This is not a first marriage - not for him, anyway.
In the age of divorce, where separations and regroupings can happen with the same speed as swapping seats in a game of musical chairs, we don't always smile beatifically and weep tears of joy as once-again newlyweds happily parade in public. We snicker. We editorialize.
"Cécilia left him, so of course he needed to re-establish his attractiveness as a mate," one observer offered. It has been widely noted that the new wife looks very much like the former one.
But when you think about it, the Sarkozy-Bruni wedding has all the markings of a great romantic fairytale.
If President Bling-Bling had not been married and divorced twice before, news of his marriage to the never-before-wed songstress would have been greeted like that of late prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, then a long-time bachelor, and a dewy Margaret Sinclair, who tied the knot secretly in 1971.Consider that Ms. Bruni is famous for dismissing the urge to marry. She is like many French in that regard, who are disenchanted with the institution and have one of the lowest marriage rates in the world, second only to the Swedes. Last year, Ms. Bruni declared, "I prefer polygamy and polyandry. Love lasts a long time but burning desire - two to three weeks."
And yet, there's something about Mr. Sarkozy that made her say yes.
Of course, she may have succumbed to the allure of power, but it's not like she hasn't bedded some big names, including, among others, Eric Clapton, Kevin Costner, former Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius and Mick Jagger.
She was a femme fatale: the Goddess of Non-Commitment. She smote the men. They swooned. She moved on. In his autobiography, Mr. Clapton, who has referred to Ms. Bruni as "the love of my life," writes that when he introduced Mr. Jagger to her backstage one night, "I remember saying, 'Please Mick, not this one. I think I'm in love.' ... For all my pleadings, it was only a matter of days before they started a clandestine affair."
No man had swept her to the altar, not even Raphaël Enthoven, the father of her six-year-old son, Aurélien.
Real love in this new marriage is a possibility.
Couldn't the speed with which Mr. Sarkozy popped the question - only about 10 weeks after meeting Ms. Bruni at a dinner party - be a sign of their passion?
As it is, the romantic event is considered a coup de foudre, which implies that it is ill-advised and won't last.
The newlyweds seem unfazed by the gossip and public attention. Posing for the media at a café the morning after their quiet wedding, she rests her head on his shoulder, as if the moment is completely private.
