An alternative is to go and find a bank with an 
office in France, or an affiliate office there 
(which will be most major banks) and get them to 
do a bank draft. This is like a bank check but in 
the foreign currency from the foreign bank, in 
this case a French bank check from a French bank. 
Doing this means that the verification of the 
check takes place locally in France, and 
generally done within 3-5 days (like any other 
local check). I assume you are in the US, so 
there are lots of US banks that will do this, 
otherwise go and find BNP (Banque National de 
Paris) one of the worlds largest banks and 
fortunately for you a French bank, they certainly 
do this (I have done it from Australia, and 
worked in the office that actually did this sort 
of thing, for BNP). The only down side is that 
you might need a fairly major branch of the bank 
to find someone who knows what you are talking 
about (also it can cost a little more than an 
IMPO, but not much).