The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-31 00:00:00

AN ACTION- TO RECOVER -Oitrx Hu.N.
DBED 11.110FISAND FRANCA
•

It has been stated that great sensation has beau
caused by a lady having broright'an action again,4
a lieutenant-colonel of the army to recover
100,000 f. damages for his refusal to marry her
according to the civil form, after being married to
her according to the forms of the church—and the
principal circumstances of the case have also been re-
lated. On. Wednesday the matter was brought on
before the Civil Tribunal, Paris, and it excited ex-
traordinary interest, the Court being crowded by
fashionable personages. M. Berry, advocate for the
lady, after some preliminary observations; made a
statement to this effect :—The lady, Mme. indouin
by name, daughter of an adjutant-general of the
Neapolitan army, was married to a superior officer
of the army, who died in 1854, leaving her with a
son. She was an affectionate wife to him, as his
family testified. M. Dubost, the defendant, then %
chef d'escadron, was a friend of her husband, and
frequently visited him. After his death, he con-
tinued his visits to her, took great interest in her -
position, endeavoured to get her child placed in a
public school, and with the consent of her family
became the boy's guardian. Before long he began
to manifest sentiments of affection for the lady, and
employed all means to touch her heart. She in
time conceived a passion for him. He proposed
marriage, and on the 28th May, 1854, wrote to her
mother to demand her hand. The mother gave
hei:consent, but immediately after he told Mme.
',Audouin that his parents and all his family were
vehemently.opposed to the marriage, and that his
mother threatened to curse him if he persisted in
making it. This plunged her into despair', and on
the Bth June she attempted to kill herself by taking
a dose of laudanum. M. Dubost, hearing of what
she had done, battened tivter, and manifested the
most prefOund aiffiction. Medical men were called -
in, and they declared that she could not live ; the
cure of Saint Thomas d'Aquin was accordingly
summoned, and he administered the last sacra-
ments of the church, M. Dubost all the time being
on his knees by the side of the bed weeping. When
the ceremony was over he begged the priest to
marry him and the lady, and the latter by her ges-
tures made a similar. prayer. The cure hesitated,
and went into an adjacent room to question the
physicians on the condition of the lady ; they told
him that "she could not pass the night." He,
therefore, to console her, performed the marriage
ceremony between her and Dubost. The next day
a favourable turn took place in her situation, and
ten days after she was well enough to leave the
house. She and M. Dubost then drove to.a jewel-
ler's, and he there purchased two wedding-rings,
on whicfi he caused to be engraved, " C. 0., E.D.,
united the Bth June, 1854." On the 22d the
couple attended mass, and the cure afterwards, in
the vestry, blessed the rings and presented them to
the pair. From that day they believed themselves
husband and wife. M. Dubost wrote several let-
ters to Mme. Audouin, expressing the most pro-
found affection for her ; in one of them he said,
" Claire, lam your husband before God t In my
honour and my love you should confide I" On the
31st July, expecting that his military service might
call him away, he executed before a notary a deed
authorising M. an engineer by profession,
to take measures for obtaining the consent of his .
parents to the marriage, and even, if necessary, to •
give the notice that it would be effected without
their consent ; also to settle the conditions of the.
marriage settlement. The day after he handed thr.t
gentleman a letter addressed to the Minister of W-ar,
soliciting his authorisation to the marriage. In the
evening he promised to visit Mine. Audouin, but
never went. In the course of the evening that
lady's maid received an anonymous letter, stating
that " a great misfortune had occurred in the Du.-
boat family, and that Felix (the defendant) must
remain at home." She took the letter to the cure
of St. Thomas d'Aquin, and he called on Mine.
Audouin to communicate the contents to her. She
went to the house 'of old M. Dubost—nothing had
occurred ; she then went to the lodgings of her
lover—he was not there. She afterwards received
a letter from him, saying that " something had
happened which rendered calm and isolation neces-
sary to him," begging of her to love him, for he
loved her and was her husband, and declaring
mysteriously that "it was from Algiers the blo w
had come !" Madame Audouin knew from his
own confession that he had abandoned a woman at
Algiers, by whom he had had a child—and she
fared from this reference to that country that lip
meant to abandon her likewise. Not hearing of

him for some days siaO made inquiries, and learned
that on his own demand he had been sent to the
Crimea. She went to the Crimea, and had him
summoned to herpresence in the teutof the chaplain.
1 She then solemnly called on him to fulfil his pro-
mise to her, but he refused. "I have forgotten all
that has passed between us," said he, " and will
not hear talk of it !" On this she drew forth a
poignard, stabbed herself in the breast, and fell
bathed in blood. For three weeks her life was in.
danger, and then she was brought back to Paris.
Some time after M. Dubost, who had risen to the
rank of lieutenant-colonel, came to Paris, and she
and her friends called on him to have a civil mar-
riage celebrated between them, so as to make the
religious one valid ; but be refused. She went to
him, and supplicated him to fulfil his engagement
to her, but he again positively refused. She then
drew forth a pistol, and seemed disposed. to dis-
charge it at him or herself, but he wrested it from
her. He afterwards denounced her to the police.
Seeing that he was determined not to fulfil his ea-
gagements she brought the action. The learned
counsel then proceeded to argue that the lady bad
suffered grievous wrong at the hands of the defei-
dapt, and that the tribunal ought to grant heavy
damages.—M. Mogent Saint Laurens, advocate of
Lieutenant-Colonel Dubost, said that the law with
regard to breach of promises of marriage was that
damages could not be obtained when the promise
alleged to be broken had not been freely given ;
and his answer to the case was that his client had.
not given a free promise. He then said that Mme.
Audouin, who was forty years of age and wag
of an irascible, violent, romantic character, had,
very shortly after the death of her husband, at
which she pretended to be profoundly afflicted,
begun to lay her nets for M. Dubost, and he being
good-natured, and perhaps rather frivolous, was not
on his guard against them. Not content with the
visits which he paid her, she wrote him letters in
which she called him the " friend of her unoccu-
pied hours," and applied to him endearing epithets. Passionate language soon began to be employed
between them, but as he did not talk of marriage,-
as she wished, she on the 26th of May
of poison, and when he presentluedahyimtrelkf itat
the house he found her pale
oanadthhaisgghard, and ap-
parently to oin a dying state:
her, wrote to her mother to demand he, hand , at
that time the ashes of her husbandidw who
ehr. had Only
been dead two months, were not yet she
made no objection to
M. Dubost opposed the
his Writ' !co The family of
ing
m a r r i a goet!
tohne
aeoouns of the
violent and eccentric character
on the Bth June she had lady, and so
ing. On that day eoune
to
another poison-
meant to take laudanum in order to procure sleep,
but she added,
too strong she wroterc to him to say that she
" I a deceive myself by taking
a dose
was intended. to announce a suicide, and he hasten-
edl" many
saw clearly that theletter
to her house. He there found her in apparently
a dying state,a priest in his robes, lighted can-
dles, and ' with
several persons around her bed; the scene
-
was very dramatic.
When the priest had adminis-
te
• red extreme unction to the lady, who appeared
to he dying' M. Debost, who really felt great em o.
tion, cried'MarrYng us i"
and the marriage ceremony
Was gone thro
is. But that ceremony was void,
both in the eye ofthe law an d according to' the
canons of the church. The question subsequently
presented itself to the mind of M. Dubost—was the'
poisoning of Madame Audouin fictitious or real I
If fictitious the case fell to the ground, and the
learned counsel contended that it was so, inasmuch
as Madame Audouin was perfectly conscious of all
tb. at was passing, and had subsequently recorded it
in writing ; whereas if she had taken poison enough
to cause her death, she would have been in a stu-
pefied state. This doubt and the violence of Ma.
dame Audouin's character convinced M. Dubost
that marriage would only be misery for both, espe_
cially as he had not disguised from her that he had
been connected with another female, and was the
fathei of a child. As to the scenestbat subsequently
took place between him and the lady, they proved
the prudence of his resolution. The learned gentle-
man concluded by contending that as the promise
M. Dubost was alleged to have made had been
given under moral constraint it was not binding in
law, and that therefore no damages were due from
him. The Public Prosecutor, after summing up
the case, expressed the opinion that the action
ought to be dismissed. The Tribune postponed
judgment for a week.--Go/ignanesAfesseilger•

Mit, TRACKERAY'S LECTllllo.—Yesterday evening,
at the Marylebone Institution,
the first time in London, the Afr. Thackeray began, for
series of lectures on the
"Four Georges," which he had previous.ly delivered in
the United ,States of America, in Scotland, and in the
proyinceß. Tie room was crowded in every part.