MARRIAGE EXTRAORDINARY.

Southland Times, Issue 1168, 31 May 1869, Page 2

MARRIAGE EXTRAORDINARY.

The mystery surrounding a marriage announced some weeks ago, by notification posted up at the Maine of the Riie d'Anjdu, Paris, has been cleared up. The marriage banns proclaimed the approaching union of the Count Paul , — , of Paris, with Nelissa, daughter of Hatfjik, of the tribe of Bedouins belonging to the province of Mostaganem. Now, not more than fifteen years ago, this same Count Paul • was the glass of fashion of the most aristocratic and exclusive circles of Parisian Society. Count Paul was young, was handsome, very daring, and very rich — the only son of one of the most wealthy and most noble of the landed proprietors in the Lyonnais, consequently, the hunt being open, every mother in Paris took to horse, shouldered her firelock, and set out in hot pursuit of this most noble quarry. But in the midst of the attention of which he had become the ofbject, Count Paul suddenly disappeared. A gambling transaction in which he had been mixed up (unjustly so, it is firmly believed) had so displeased his father that, while paying the debt to the utmost farthing to save Ms son's, honour, he had advised him to leave the country- in . such very strong terms that the young ''man, full of wrath and ire, had r tafcen the advice to the very letter, and had enlisted in an African regiment, resolved to communicate . with his father no more r until he had wiped away the stain) he had brought upon 1 his name. Amongst the enfans perdu* with whom he had taken service he was not slow in procuring advancement. He was then just, twentyfive, and when visiting Algiers en conye

became as much the roqueluche amongst the ladies there as in Paris. But the heart which had resisted all the scientific attack of the most experienced vertrans in love, fell a prey to the most innocent, most guileless and unsuspecting of human beings, an Arab maiden of fourteen ! The girl was living with her father in the adjoining house to that occupied by the officer. He could behold her from ids window pursuing her domestic avocations the whole day long. And it was not long ere her attention was attracted to him likewise, and the love became mutual. The young officer, who h?d served his apprenticeship to the tender passion in Paris, had become somewhat hardened, it would seem, and persuaded the girl to leave her home and follow him on his return to his regiment. This was no diflicult task. Her life was of the rudest in her father's house, and her iove for the young Frenchman most 1 impassioned. She was borne off to the out-station where he tfa* quartered, and Remained concealed for some time, until at length it was hoped that she had been forgotten. But it was not so. Some members of the tribe discovered her retreat, and one day when the Count returned from an excursion into the desert, he found his tent ravaged and his treasure gone. His despair was great, for the Arabs around him declared that it was probable the girl had fallen a victim to the notions of honor of the tribe, and dissuaded him from any endeavor to recapture her. He returned brokenhearted to Algiers to find that the girl's lather had died, and that nothing whatever had been heard of her. Meanwhile, he had inherited his fortune from his own father, and had come back to France to take possession of his estates. More than ever was he sought after, as you may imagine ; for, worn, thin, and broken-hearted as he was, he was yet the possessor of great wealth, and the chase, although not perhaps quite so gallant or go gay. as formerly, was renewed with as much vigor ad eve*. But the Count heeded none of the attentions of which he became the object ; he lived in his old hotel in the Rue d'Aguesseau, studious and solitary, perfectly indifferent to all the agitation around him. He collected books and pictures, he read a great deal, and devised improvements for his lands. This sort of life continued for more than S, dozen years, when, one fine day at the end of January, we learn that he has left Paris for Algiers, on receipt of a telegram, and so suddenly that no time was allowed for taking farewell of his friends. And the next information, of more importance still — for it closed the hunt without the curie which French mothers love, so well, and sent them bredouille to make nets and set traps for smaller game —was that of the posting up of the Count's marriage in the terms we have mentioned above.