The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-02 00:00:00

iVENING EDITION.

A NOVEL APPLICATION OF THE I
DAGUEREOTYPE.

A strange case of separation a mensa et thoro is about
to be submitted to the Civil Tribunal of Versailles. M.
X—, a gentleman formerly a member of the corps di-
:alematique, married, in 183 G, Mdlle. Louise B—, the
daughter of respectable citizens of Versailles. This
marriage, which was one of pure inclination on the part
of M. X—, as the young lady had no fortune whatever,
was as happy as could be imagined until the spring of
the present year. At that period violent disputes, kin-
dled by Madame X—, took place, and one of those in-
ternal separations, so frequent in Parisian menages, was
agreed to by the parties. M. X— continued to reside
at the chateau he possesses near Ville d'Avray, and
Madame X— was permited to lodge, with her maid and
a gardener, in a pavilion quite separated from her hus-
band's chateau, and surrounded by a garden enclosed
with high walls.
M. X— soon had reason to entertain strong suspi-
cions as to the conduct of his wife ; but he was unwilling
to put any questions to the servants, or to take any step
that might compromise the honour of a woman whom
he still loved. He, however, contrived means of ascer-
taining whether his suspicions were well founded. A
sort of cottage existing outside of the wall, separating
the pavilion garden from the remainder of the property,
M. X—took up his quarters in it, and by means of a
hole bored through the wall was enabled to see that
every morning at eleven his lady's window opened, and
that she came down and walked in the garden with a
handsome young man, the son of a neighbouring land-
owner.
Averse to exercising the awful privilege which the
law concedes to an outraged husband, M. X— spent
the following night in opening another aperture in the
wall, and despatched his valet to Paris. The latter re-
turned at ten o'clock in the morning with a box, which
he conveyed into the park cottage. It was a Daguerreo-
type. M, X---- carefully placed the camera-obscura
mirror facing the second aperture he had made, and,
when the window opened, seeing his wife and the young
iodine
lnan embrace, he put the plate prepared with into
the box. Though two minutes scarcely elapsed whilst it
eras thus exposed, the sun was so bright that a most
correct drawing of the dishonourable meeting at the
1 window was obtained. M. X—, determined to live no
longer with his worthless wife, has just applied for a
separation a nzensa et thorn, and, in support of it, de-
posited in the Civil Tribunal of Versailles the photo-
genic drawing, affording undeniable evidence of the in-
jury he has sustained. It is affirmed that MM. Da-
guerre and Arago wiil be summoned to supply the tri-
bunal with all the scientific information that may be
required.—Audience (French Law Paper).
[We fear that the vivacious imaginations of Messieurs
le! Raconteurs have in this case outran the progress of
pictorial possibilities, aided even by the sensitive and
susceptible Daguereotype. Two minutes is not long
enough for the photogenic operation, even under the
genial sky of Versailles—particularly in October. Be-
sides, it is absolutely necessary that the objects of the
pictorial representation should remain in a state of per-
fect repose during the reception of their image in the
camera. The slightest accidental motion is sufficient
to confuse them. Some figures of men and women
taken accidentally by M. Daguerre in his exquisite
views from the Pont Neuf (and which may now be
seen at the Adelaide Gallery) appear more like ghosts
than flesh and blood, in consequence of slight changes
in their positions whilst resting against the railings. The
iron bar upon which one figure leans can be plainly
seen through its body! Such confused and shifting
1 evidence would not do for an English jury, we calculate ?]