WOMAN HATER'S BRIDE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21763, 31 March 1934, Page 3 (Supplement)

WOMAN HATER'S BRIDE

DEATH-BED MARRIAGE

LARGE FORTUNE INHERITED Among the cases listed for hearing in the Paris courts is a will dispute which will reveal a curious story of a wealthy miser's lifelong hatred of women and the singular feasons which made him relent on his death-bed. Charles Vatel was a well-known shipbroker of Marseilles, and until a few days before his death, at the age of 65, he refused to allow a woman to come near him on any pretext. He laid down a rule that only men were to be employed in his offices, and each applicant for a post had to sign an understanding to remain single or quit his service. This rule was strictly enforced .regardless of the value of the man to the firm. Vatel even went to the length of refusing to deal with local traders unless they gave him an undertaking that no woman would be allowed to handle goods intended for him. He did his own cooking, washing and housework, and up to tho time of his retirement from business two years ago he walked miles to save bus fares. A few weeks ago he became seriously ill and was told he - had not long to live. Only then did he show any change in his attitude toward women. He confided to his doctor, lawyer and confessor that he feared, his harshness toward the other sex would imperil his soul's future, and he implored them to find a young woman of good character who would be willing to marry him. They found Mile. Marianne Latoune, a 33-year-old secretary, who fulfilled the conditions when, unaware of the identity of her dying bridegroom, she went through the marriage ceremony. Vatel lingered for three days after this strange marriage, and when the will was opened the bride was astounded to learn she had been left a fortune of 3.3,000,000 francs! This is about £170,000 at the present, rate of exchange. Distant relatives of Vatel have now come forward to contest the will on the ground that the miser was not in his right mind at the time. They do not, however, challenge the validity of the marriage, and even if they win the bride cannot be deprived of the prescribed share under French law. A strange coincidence of the affair is that the girl who jilted Vatel in his boyhood and was thus responsible for turning him into a woman hater is an aunt of the death-bed bride.