COUNTESS MARRIES A PEASANT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3021, 19 October 1908, Page 3

COUNTESS MARRIES A PEASANT.

SACRIFICES A FORTUNE FOR HER LOVER. The romantic marriage of a young Hungarian countess of ancient lineage wth a peasant youth was celebrated in the seventh district registry office at Budapest on Monday, August 31st last. This marriage is the elin.ax to a sensational struggle between the peasant lover and the Hungarian courts for the custody of the girl, and the romance, which extended over several months, has excited the greatest interest throughout the country. The love affair began last spring, when sixteen-year-old Counts&s Henrietta Pongracz formed a violent attachment for Dopenu Opneasik, a peasant lad working in the fields on her father's estate. Her father, Count Edward Pongracz, was furious when he dis- j covered that his daughter loved the : farm labourer, and promptly placed , her in a convent. The countess escaped soon afterwards, and joined her lover. The couple made their home in a miserable hut just outside the gates of Count Edward's castle. Sj The infuriated father then appealed j to the Hungarian Court of Guardians to exercise their authority over his daughter, as she was a mfnor, and I the judge ordered the countess to be ] arrested and placed in a reformatory j in Budapest. Her lover retained a lawyer, who fought the order, and appealed to the Ministry of the Interior, Meanwhile Count Edward died, leaving his daughter unforgiven and practically penniless, the bulk of his fortun3 going to his son, Count Johann Pongracz. The Countess' mother, a woman of middle-class birth, at last yielded to her daughter's entreaties to consent to the marriage, which was accordingly celebrated on the date above-mentioned.