A LOVER'S RUSE.

Evening Post, Volume XLV, Issue 94, 22 April 1893, Page 1 (Supplement)

A LOVER'S RUSE.

Love laughs at laws a* well as at locksmiths. A young couple in Paris have found a way to overcome the resistance of a parent to their union, even though the Code Napoleon declares that no one — be he or she eighty years of age — shall marry without leave first obtained iom father and mother. It appears that some time ago a French gentleman, who had made a modest fortune in Martinique, came back with his wife aud daughter to France, there to live in retirement. Dissensions then grew up between the husband and wife, and they agreed to separate. Soon afterwards the daughter fell in love with the son of a distinguished French general. The consent of the father to the marriage of the young people was obtained, but the mother would not listen to it. According to French ideas this was sufficient to at once break off the match. But the young lover is a man of resource, and is not too scrupulous. There is a clause in the law governing the subject which says that if a parent shall have disappeared, and four persons shall have sworn to the tact, that parent's consent to any matrimonial projects shall not be required. Four persons accordingly were engaged, who swore that the young man's prospective mother-in-law was nowhere to be found ; and things having been thus prepared, the marriage took place with as much privacy as possible. It was only when the mother was greeted by some one in the street the other day with the assurance that she had a charming son-in-law that she discovered the trick played upon her. The Courts will be called upon to decide whether a marriage contracted under such circumstances is binding and also whether the parties to it can be punished.