The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-11 00:00:00

THE BONAPARTE-PATERSON TRIAL.

The Bonaparte-Paterson cause was again resumed
on Friday before the civil tribunal of the Seine,
The Court sat at 11 o'clock. The hall was not as
well filled as on the preceding Friday, when every-•
body who could procure a ticket hastened to hear
the statetueut of the eloquent Bcrrycr, the advo-
cate of Madame Elizabeth Paterson, and her son
Jerome Bonaparte. When the President of the
Court and the other judges had taken their seats
M. Merveilleux-Duvignaux, the substitute of the
Imperial attorney, rose. He commenced by stating
that the struggle and its emotions had now ceased.
Eight days had passed over and somewhat cooled
the effects of the ardent words then uttered, and
it was now the duty of the public officer to pro-
nounce with a calm voice the language of the law.
Never did he better appreciate what he might be
permitted to call the special dignity of his mission
in a civil proceeding. He would not occupy him-
self with the parties in the cause, nor with the
consequences which the judgment of the Court
might produce. The respective advocates in the
cause having fully stated the facts, it remained for
the public officer to give his opinion with impar-
tiality and as simply as possible as to which side
the law is. Under the title of a demand for an
account and a division of property M. Bonaparte
and Madame Paterson raise the greatest of all
State questions. They produce a certificate of mar-
riage to which a nullity is pleaded by the opposite
party. The Imperial attorney's substitute then
proceeded to examine the validity of the documents
produced by Prince Napoleon to prove the
nullity of the marriage. With respect to the .S'ena-
tus consult c prohibiting the marriage of a French
prince without the sanction of the Emperor Napo-
leon, he did not think it applied to Jeroine Bona-
parte, inasmuch :as he was not a prince at the '
period of his marriage. The second article of the
Code Napoleon, moreover, enacts that it is to be
applied only to future marriages. To the great
surprise of the audience, M. Duvignaux declared
that the Imperial decrees of the 11th and 30th
Ventose, dissolving the marriage, were unconsti-
tutional. The latter violated at the same time the
rule of the Constitution of the year 10, which only
gave the Executive power the right of assuring the
execution of the laws ; and the 14th Article of the
Senatus-consulte of the year 12, which gave to the
Emperor the privilege of regulating the future
duties of the Imperial family ; and, in fine, it vio•
lated the grand principle of the division of powers,
the judicial authorities alone having a right to
pronounce judgment on the civil position of citi-
zens. " But I will not," added the public officer,
" In any manner advance on the burning ground
of the appreciation of constitutional law and of the
Imperial power. I make these observations to
explain why, perhaps, the Government hesitated to
publish that decree."
He added that he attached no importance to the
circumstance on which one of the counsel relied—
that the word prejet was endorsed on the draught
of the decree. The explanations given by the
learned director of the Imperial archives proved
that several other draughts were so endorsed ; that
the projet became a decree when it received the
Imperial signature, and this draught bears the
date signed by the Imperial hand; and that the
word projet was defaced. But a fact of considera-
ble importance is, that this document remained
locked up in the archives oven after it was signed,
and was never published. No trace could since be
discovered of any publication or notification what-
soever made to those to whom the decree was ad-
dressed. It is to be remarked, moreover, that this
decree regulated not only a matter of private inte-
rest, but it decided a point of public order—the
validity of a marriage. Moreover, it contained not
only a decision applicable to parties whose mar-
riage it annulled, but injunctions were made in it
to public functionaries—a penalty was announced
against those violating it. The nation ought to
have been apprised of it, and it was not. The
reason is— and that is the essential point—it was
not intended that the decree should ever be en-
forced. M. Duvignaux then read the correspond-
ence between the first Napoleon, the Pope, the
Archchancellor, and Prince Jerome, and he drew
the conclusion that none of the acts executed by
the Sovereign had annulled the marriage. Then,
with respect to nullity according to the civil law,
two infractions had been committed—the marriage
was contracted without the consent of the mother of
Jerome and there was default of publication in
France. He could not insist on the want of consent
on the part of the mother as constituting a clandes-
tine marriage. No decision of the judicial authori-
ties had ever been pronounced on it, and it is now
buried in a double tomb. The real question remains
—ls the marriage null for want of publication in
France ? That question, so often discussed, has
been decided in the affirmative, particularly by a
decree of the 6th of March, 1837, which deserves
notice. The following is the text :
" Inasmuch as the 170th article, by providing that
a marriage contracted in a foreign country is valid
if it have been preceded by the prescribed publica-
tion, and the notification to the fathers and mothers,
has by the same terms declared that any marriage
contracted without the accomplishment of these
formalities is null ; inasmuch as the article 170
cannot be interpreted with respect to marriages con-
tracted in a foreign country by the rules of the
same code relative to marriages celebrated in France
—That if the latter may be declared valid when
there is neither publication nor notice to the parents
it is because the law finds its sanction in the penal-
ties pronounced against the civil officers, while with
respect to marriages contracted in a foreign coun-
try the law has no other means of giving a sanction
to its prescriptions than by declaring the marriage
invalid. That if it were otherwise it would be suf-
ficient for Frenchmen to pass into a foreign country
in order to emancipate their marriage from all the
conditions imposed on it by the French laws."
The Imperial attorney's substitute does not be-
lieve that so absolute "a system ought to be adopted.
He founds his opinion, among other reasons, on the
discussion on the subject in the Council of State
when M. Trouchet reminded the Council that the
formality of publication is founded on the principle
that it is better tb prevent a ♦icious marriage than
to annul it after it is contracted. This opinion of
M. Trouchet indicates implicitly that publication
is merely a measure of precaution. The Imperial
substitute then arrived at the two sentences pro-
nounced on the same question by the council clt the
Imperial family, the first dated the 4th of July,
1856, and the second dated the sth of July, 1860,
both of which decided against the claims of Madame
Paterson and tle MM. Bonaparte. " The entire
affair is definitively judged," concluded M. Du-
vignaux,— _ _

" Such, gentlemen, in my opinion, is the real
knot of the affair, and that would have rendered
my argument on the other parts of the case unneces-
sary, but that the fact of the cause having been
already judged may appear doubtful to you ; and,
moreover, because the slightest shade should not be
cast on such a law suit. Your independence has
been alluded to in eloquent language. But is it
meant to fitly that the elevated position of one of the

* Gasparoni.
t The celebrated writer has been for some years absent
from Rome. The zardinal now, though spare; is far from
Wing pitiful, or mid to look upout