A PARISIAN ROMANCE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3180, 7 September 1881, Page 4

A PARISIAN ROMANCE.

M. Edouard Andre's matrimonial engagement with Mdllo. Nelly Jacquemart, the painter, is what society in Prance most talks about just now. The fashionable world and the respectable lourgeoisie think that M. Andre, who has a fortune of 50,000,000f., sets a deplorablo example in taking Mdlle. Jacquemart for his wife. An income of 500,000£. has been settled by the opulent banker on his bride elect, who so far has depended for a livelihood on her pencil. The idea is that he should have looked out for another fortune, or have dedicated his millions to the daughter of some noble personage bearing an old title. Mdlle. Jacquemart's vogue as an artiet began in 1872, when she exhibited the portraits of Thiers and Dufaure in the Salon. The following year she did the portrait of M. Andre, then a pleasureseeking millionaire. He jilted a daughter of M. Bouher about twelve years ago. To eecure him for her all the Governmental

pressure Which the (at the time) ViceEmperor commanded was brought to bear v.pon an arrondissement of the Grard. The manoeuvre, dictated by paternal ambition and affection was shown up in the Corps LogWatif by "SI. Julc~ i mxy. The fortune M. Andro possesses and scarcely enjoys —for he is in hopelessly bad health, blash, and unable to find any pleasure in his luxurious surroundings — has been spontaneously evolved out of the considerable one left him by his father, a Protestant Nimois banker and friend of Gruizot, and through his own foreknowledge of the localities through which Baron BTaussmann was to run boulevards and avenues. His Investments—for the profits they were to bring were too certain for them to be called speculations — enormously increased his capital. The mansion which he inhabits in Boulevard Haussmann stands on ground bought at 20f. a yard, which could not were it still waste be purchased for less than 600f. a yard. Andre's stables rank in the eyee of turfites with those of the Rothschilds and Count Lagninge. Mdlle. Jacquemart is forty years old, small, lively, intelligent, and interesting. She has a gipsy complexion and head of raven-black hair, and the finest pair of black eyes imaginable. Her father was an artist; her mother for years directed a little shop in the Faubourg Montmartre for an American manufacturer of sewing machines. Mdlle. Jacquemart indirectly owes her good fortune to M. Jules Simon, who induced Thiers and Dnfaure to sit to her for their portraits. Dufaure's portrait was a remarkably fine one ; Thier's was not. But he being chief of the Executive, it made her the fashion. The year after she did it Andre patronised her studio, and was greatly pleased with the artist, in whom he later found a delightful companion, and with her portrait of him, which showed him what he might have become if, instead of being born to inherit millions, he had been born tto poverty, and nobly worked his way out of il. The blase plpasure-seeker had this likeness placed in his sleeping chamber, opposite to his bed. The prejudice is so strong in France against rich men espousing poor girls that for ten years he had not the courage to pop the question. He is now debarred by his state of health frem evevy enjoyment except that derived from a cheerful and very intelligent woman's conversation. His pleasure is now to make the fair painter the legal mistress of his splendid mansion and of £20,000 ayear, and ho thinks himself lucky to make sure of her permanent companionship at that price,