Marriage in the Death Chamber.

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 6, 15 December 1869, Page 2

Marriage in the Death Chamber.

Marriages in extremis ar« not uufrequout in Franco, and the plot of many no vela turns upon them. The Paris correspondent of the Daily Nevus gives the particulars of a case in which the validity of a union of the kind at the very last moment Is the question awaiting the decision of the Civil Tribunal at Tounero. Some few months ago, the ProcureurImperial of that town was roused up in the dead of night by a man on horseback, who said he had ridden at full speed from the country house of M. Humbert, who was at the point of death, desired to by married immediately, and begged the Procureur to allow the civil officer to celebrate the marriage at his bedside without the usual formalities. The Procureur answered out of his window that he could not do what was asked at the mere instigation of a messenger whom he did not know, but that if a certificate were brought from the mayor of the village in which M. Humbert lived, he would grant the dispensation. The messenger “ spared not for the spoiling of his horse,” but dashing back, woke up the mayor, returned to Tonnere,and was so successfully active that before daybreak there were assembled in the death-chamber a member, of the Municipal Council, delegated by the mayor to perform the civil service, the cure of the parish, and two witnesses. Kneeling down at the side of the bed, in an agony of grief and suspense, was a woman who, for eighteen years, had lived with M. Humbert (one of the wealthiest landholders in the neighbourhood) as his mistress. A young girl, the issue of the marriage, was also in the room, and the object of the marriage was to confer upon her the status of legitimacy, as the French, like the Scotch law, allows per sahsequens matrimonium. The marriage was gone through, and two hours after wards the husband expired. He left behind him a fortune of 800,000f., every sou of which will go to the widow and daughter if the marriage lie held valid, as in all probability it will be. The disappointed blood relations, who had taken it for granted that the inheritance will come to them, have brought an action to have the marriage declared null and void. M. Allou, for them, argued that the marriage was bad, first, as clandestine ; and second, because M. Humbert was too near death at the time to be able to give a valid consent. M. Lauhaud .nlcaded for one widow and child. The court at once overruled the objection on the ground of slaudestinity, holding that the dispension of the Procureur-Tmperial was sufficient, but it reserved dual judgment until after an enquiry as to whether at the moment of the marriage M. Humbert had sufdcimit consciousness to know what he was doing.