A FRENCH WIDOW AND HER MOTHER.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1809, 8 December 1879, Page 4

A FRENCH WIDOW AND HER MOTHER.

One of the most curious cases which have lately come before the Law Courts of Paris was that in which a lady who was once known as the gay Duchess do Porsigny was the plaintiff. According to the of M. Lachaud, her counsel, his client, who is now Madame le Moyne, was married to the Duke cf Porsigny in 1852, and ho left her a widow with five children at the beginning of 1872. She next married M. le Moyne, a barrister at Cairo, who died recently. The Princess do la Moskowa, her widowed mother, gave her no dowry on either occasion, though she could very well have afforded to bestow upon her a very considerable allowance, as her income is estimated at sixteen thousand pounds sterling annually. Now, her daughter, Widow le Moyne, the ex-Duchese of Persigny, and former bright particular star of the exEmprees’s soirees, is in such straitened circumstances that she has not sufficient money to set her up in housekeeping. She therefore prayed the Court yesterday to order her mother to allow her £lO a month, and to give her £l6O down to purchase furniture with. Her venerable, but by no means generous, parent, the wealthy Princess, offered her a yearly pension of £320, which M. Lachaud treated as ridiculous for a lady in_ Madame le Moyne’s position. “ But,” replied his adversary, M. Helbrouner, “ the widow of the Duke de Persigny has left, I believe, some souvenirs in the ‘ Chronique ’ of the Second Empire, and if a St. Simon had been able to see and hear her concealed in some corner of the Salle des Marechaux, he would have sketched a very piquant portrait of her.” Those ungallant remarks are irrelevant to the case, and as uncalled for as they are ungallant. But M Lachaud showed quite as great a lack of chivalry by retorting as follows : —“ It is rather to the Princess de la Moskowa that he might have devoted a few curious pages.” But the most curious part of M. Hclbronner’s speech is that in which he shows how a French noblewoman may lose caste, and, at the same time, her right to a decent income. “ Widow le Moyne,” he said, “ who claims a situation from fortune worthy of a duchess, forgets that she laid aside her coronet and sent her coat of arms to the lumber room, when she married a business agent in Egypt. If the £320 a year offered her by her mother ■would have been a mere trifle for the D uchess of Persigny, it is surely a sufficient allowance for the widow of M. le Moyne. She has already £4BO a year, and £320 added to that makes £BOO a year. Is it her mother's fault if that income is not enough to satisfy her inordinate desires of every kind ?” The Court showed itself more generous than the Princess de la Moskowa, at her expense of course, and ordered her to pay her daughter an annual pension of £4BO and give her £l6O down to make a fresh start in housekeeping.