A ROMANTIC MARRIAGE.

Evening Star, Issue 3117, 14 February 1873, Page 3

A ROMANTIC MARRIAGE.

A Paris correspondent of the Globe, describing the recent marriage of M Rochefort, writes :—“ Few romancers of fiction have imagined fir their climax an incident so pathetic as the marriage of Henri Rochefort, with all the circumstances which, in fact, surrounded it. Several years aero, when Comte de Rochefort l ucay. be wooed and won Maria Ant.vie Renauld, the daughter of an employd in the Ministry of Finance. They were at the time almost hoy and girl—he, 1 think, twenty, and she sixteen—and did not find it necessarj' to consecrate their affection by any other ceremony than those vows of constancy which usually !>rove of very transient force. It was not so, icwever, in this case. By successive stages the Comte de Rochefort let himself be carried away by his virulent wit and his eager desire for notoriety, until he became famous for satires which were certainly out of all keeping with an ancient title, and he wisely dropped his rank. It is poor work attacking a fallen man, and I will not inquire noviT whether some of his extravagant articles, whi"h, however mean f , could bub fall like oil upon the fire < f fiercer men’s passions, were not equally unworthv of the plain citizen Henri Rochefort claimed to be. The natural results of such a career has been at one time exile, at another implication in the horrors committed by ’hose who were or had been his followers, and finally the condition of a prisoner for the rest of hia life. During all his changes < f fortune, except the last, Mdle, Renauld has remained with him. At Brussels, when he was in exile, at Paris during the siege, they were together, and they have only been parted lately owing to Kr illness. This is at pres nt so dangerous that in all probability death must come soon, f'he could not meet this calmly without r medying for her children, as French law enables her to do, the mistake made years ago. There were difficulties in the way. She could not be moved from her bed, and her lover had ceased to have the right, or at least the power, to control his own actions However, these obstacles have been overcome, and he was permitted, strongly guarded at every step, to visit the dying woman in the Convent of the Augustincs at Versailles, and make her his wife. By this the children, a daughter and two sons, became legitimate. No wonder that people have talked of little eke the last two days. Curiosity was naturally excited to know each detail of this strange conclusion to a singular story ; hut the matter was so well and quietly managed that very few inquisitive spectators could get in, where their presence would have been most unacceptable. Rochefort had been brought to the Maison d’Arr6t of Versailles, and thence his marriage procession started. It consisted of one large hired carriage conveying the bridegroom and three police-agents (dressed in plain clothes); it left the prison at a very early hour, and had for escort a strong guard, who also surrounded in force the Maison de attached to the Convent of the Augustines. Here, on the second storey, was No. 3—a little room, opening, as all sue 1 do ip places of confinemeiv, from £ great public corridor, and in fhi? lay the bride. As the poor paralysed woman con’d not of course he moved tothemairie nr the church for either the civil or religious ceremony. M. Rameau, the main, had come to her bedride. The marriage instrument was read bj'- him, while M. Rochefort stood by the bride, holding her hand. It was then signed by both, though the effort drew from her a cry of pain, and wijjpessed by Francois Victor Hugo, Ernest Blupi, Jeftp Desjsrien, and the eloquent barrister Albert Jply. This was sufficient to give legal validity to the marriage status to the children; hut Mdle. Renauld (as the Rappel states half apologetically) had begged for a religious ceremony also, and Rochefort could not refuse a request which will be probably her last. The blessing of the Church was, thererore, bestowed on the pair by the Abbe Follet ebaplajn of prisons. A|ter jjhis M. and Madame Rochefort were released from sur veillence fop a short half-hour, and left absolutely alone. At the expiration of this rime they parted, and at eleven o’clock of their bridal morning, their wedded life ended for ever. The bridegroom, with the same precautions, was conducted hack to bis temporary prison, his conductors, by the rapid pace at which they took their carriage, appearing to grudge the favor shown ; and he was carrried in a prisoners’ van to his place of peruiMiflrt Wnjiflemenfi in $$ lie de jW,”