Bruni, who had never met Sarkozy before, was one of the guests. The president escorted her home and took her phone number. Weeks later, he told the nation he was seriously in love.
But, to the public's alarm, the specter of Sarkozy's ex-wife was clear for everyone to see. Bruni looks uncannily like a younger version of Cecilia. Like his ex-wife, she is taller than Sarkozy, obliged to wear the same flat shoes while he wears stack-heeled slip-ons. The president bought Bruni the same Dior ring that Cecilia was wearing earlier this year, took her to the same haunts and flew her to Jordan - the fated spot where, in 2005, Cecilia first appeared with her lover Richard Attias, publicly cuckolding Sarkozy.
"I think it's absolutely incredible that this man, who did everything to prevent his divorce, who painfully loved Cecilia and spent years trying to keep her, should totally by chance immediately fall in love with a woman who looks exactly like her - whose name begins with C and ends in A and whom he takes to Disneyland, where he and Cecilia used to go all the time with their kids," says Catherine Nay, Sarkozy's biographer, who knows the president's family well. "From a psychoanalytical point of view, it's staggering. Maybe it's sincere and this is a real, solid love affair. But psychoanalysis shows us that it's possible to repeat situations, even unconsciously, to recreate a kind of continuity."
France awaits the promised wedding - Sarkozy's third and Bruni's first - and the new couple's attitude to protocol. The role of French president's wife is not as formal as America's first lady, but Bruni will be expected to embody elegance and dignity at official dinners and state visits. She will also have to continue the charity work of her predecessors.
"I think there will be a first phase after the marriage where the fairytale will continue and the French will admire her for her official role. She will appear at functions wearing haute couture. That will go very well if the couple avoid falling into excess, if they are elegant and not too bling-bling," says Christophe Barbier, editor of the news weekly L'Express and a close friend of Bruni's for seven years. "The second phase will be when she takes up her full role."
He describes Bruni, who is currently recording her next album, as "extremely simple, normal and humble - not a star and not a diva. She is very like a teenager in her enthusiasms. She is very curious and likes debating, taking up causes that she falls in love with. She's a northern Italian, she's not Mediterranean, but she's Italian all the same; there's a lot of fire there."
Christine Clerc, an expert on French first-lady protocol, warns that there is no precedent for a French president marrying into the world of showbiz. "We reproached Marie Antoinette for her clothes and lifestyle, but what if she had been an actress? I think our judgment would have been different. Now we have a mixture of the two, it will be very interesting to see how we judge Bruni. Will we be lax or more demanding?"
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