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concerned we weren’t officially married yet.
    “I’ll call Maître Lefebvre’s office.” Franck stood up.
    I pulled him back down again. “Not so fast. Remember the shoddy job he did for our wedding?”
    This checked him for a moment, but then he shrugged. “But who else could we go to?”
    “There haveto be other notaries around.”
    “But none of them know me or my family. Maître Lefebvre may not be the best notary around, but he’s our notary.”
    “He’s an alcoholic.” Franck shrugged as though this was hardly damning enough to justify going elsewhere. “You know, I wonder if Maître Lefebvre has a loose tongue when he drinks?” I continued. “Doesn’t he do work for almost everyone in these villages? Are you sure you could trust him not to blab all about the property, especially after a few bottles at lunchtime?”
    Franck fiddled with a stray tendril from the wisteria, troubled now. “No,” he admitted.
    “We need to find someone a bit more anonymous,” I pressed my point. “There must be several notaries in Beaune.” I hopped up to retrieve the page jaunes from the house before Franck could change his mind.
    I was right – there were almost as many notaries in Beaune as there were winemakers.
    We hopped into the Citroën and drove down through the vineyards to Beaune, finding a parking spot in the shadow of the Notre Dame church. We emerged from the car and began to wander towards the rue Paradis to head down to the Place du Marché, and before we could take four steps we spotted a shiny gold notary seal hanging outside a pair of sleek looking glass doors.
    “Look at that!” I said to Franck, who looked as thunderstruck as I felt. A notary’s office – and a lovely looking one – right here beside where we had just happened to park our car? I had walked around Notre-Dame hundreds of times and I had never noticed it before. It was as though this notary had materialized out of the ether just for us.
    Franck and I hurried over to read the fine print under the golden plaque. Notaires Associés – Maître Ange et Maître Perrot.
    “Maître Ange? Maître Angel ? You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered to the sky after a few moments of stunned silence. Franck took a step towards the door. It slid open silently to allow us to enter.
    The inner sanctum was just as perfect as the outside. At the reception desk sat an impeccably turned out secretary with a gravity-defying chignon . Franck, who had a God-given talent for charming secretaries, went up to her and explained our dilemma with regard to the property. We knew we loved it and we wanted to put an offer on it, but we really felt we needed someone like a notary to assure us we weren’t making a gigantic mistake.
    “ Bien sûr ,” she nodded. “That is most prudent. I’m sure Maître Ange will be available to assist you in a few moments.”
    Franck and I exchanged glances. The waiting room - this was surely the place where the fairytale ended. At Maître Lefebvre’s, every visit necessitated a tortuous wait in the purgatory of his airless waiting room filled with sticky, ripped plastic chairs and dog-eared issues of Paris Match from the 1980s. The waits seemed to be meticulously timed to test human endurance. Maître Lefebvre’s clients were always called in to his office just seconds before they were about to give up and leave.
    We edged our way toward the modern chairs and glossy magazines that sat opposite the reception, girding ourselves for a long wait, but before we could even sit down a door to the left of the secretary opened. A man with a head of silver hair and a sharply cut suit ushered us in, shaking our hands warmly and introducing himself as the Maître Ange.
    “Pleased to meet you,” Franck and I mumbled, both a bit dazed. To be able to see a notary without waiting…this was a completely novel experience. Franck quickly gathered his wits about him and after we had sat down outlined the problem admirably to Maître