MARRIAGE UNDER EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 31, 5 February 1873, Page 4

MARRIAGE UNDER EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES.

A Paris correspondent of the Globe thus describes the recent marriage of M. Rochefort: — Few romances of fiction have imagined for their climax an incident so pathetic' as the marriage of Henri Rochefort, with all the circumstances which, in fact, surrounded it. - Several years ago, when the man now condemned to detention for life was the young Comte de Rochefort Lugay, he wooed and won Marie Anastasie Renauld, the daughter of an employe in tho Ministry of Finance. They were at the time almost boy and girl — he, I think, 20, and she 16 — and did not find it necessary to consecrate their affection by any other ceremony than those vows of constancy which usually prove of very transient force. It was not so, however, in this case. By successive stages the Comte de Rochefort let himself be carried away by hia 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. Duriug all his changes of fortune, except the last, Mddle. Renauld bas remained with him. Rochefort bad been brought to the Maison d'Arret, 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 very strong guard of gardiens de la paix, who also surrounded in force the Maison de Same attached to the Convent of the Augustines. Here on the second story was No. 4 — a little room, opening, as ail such do in places of confinement, from a great public corridor—and in this lay the bride. As the poor paralysed woman could not of course be removed to the mairie or to the church for either the civil or religious ceremony, M. Rameau, the maire, had come to her bedside. The marriage instrument was read by 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 witnessed by Francois Victor Hugo, Ernest Blum, Jean Destrien, and the eloquent barrister, Albert Joly. Thia was sufficient to give legal validity to the marriage, and status to the children; but Mdlle. Renauld (as the Rappel states half apologetically) had begged for a religious ceremony also, and Rochfort could not refuse a request which will be probably her last. The blessing of the church was therefore bestowed on the pair by Abb 6 Follet, chaplain of prisons. After this, M. and Madame Rochefort were released from surveillance, for a short half-hour, and left absolutely alone. At the expiration of this time tbey parted for ever. The bridegroom, with the same precautions, waa conducted back to his temporary prison, his conductors, by the rapid rate at which they took the carriage, appearing to grudge tbe favor shown, and a few hours afterwards he was carritd in a prisoners' van to h s place of permanent confinement in the He de Re."