The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-04 00:00:00

BON APARTE V. PATERSON.

PARIS, SATURDAY.
The pro ceedings in the case of M. Jerome Bona-
parte and. Miss Elizabeth Paterson against Prince
Napoleon_ was resumed at half-past 10 o'clock yes-
terday in the Court of First Instance. M. Benoit
Champy presided, assisted by eight judges. The
lan in whitela the sittings were held is small, and
gives aceormmodation to very few persons besides
the meml Jen of the bar, the great majority of whom
attended es simple spectators, and had no priority
in place over the rest of the auditory. A small
Dumber of persons belonging to the magistracy had
seats allotted to them on the platform behind the
judges, and those who obtained tickets by the I
courtesy of M. Benoit Champy were placed on the
benches close to the leading counsel on both sides.
A newly-appointed judge to some other court
having been sworn in, and some few formalities
hraing been gone through, Monsieur, or rather
ifaitre Berryer (for such, according to the etiquette
of the French courts of law, is the designation of a
member of the bar), rose to reply to the speech of
N. Allou, counsel for Prince Napoleon at the last
sitting.
He observed that the system of defence adopted
by the opposite party, the document which he had
produced since the last sitting, would prevent him
from being as brief as he desired. Nevertheless, he
should endeavour to be as rapid as possible without
emitting anything important to his case. He
alluded to the remark that he had pleaded in this
case simply for the sake of pleading, and without
the hope of a favourable decision; that he had pub-
lished an impassioned memoir, and that his plead-
ings had excited the passions of the public. To all
that he had nothing to say, because it was to the
judges that he addressed himself. His adversary
thought himself authorised to look upon the mar-
riage of M. Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte with Miss
Paterson as a romantic legend—a chimera—a vague
story floating in the air ; yet he could not deny that
it was to destroy this romantic legend, this chi-
mxra, that a powerful Emperor had employed the
irregular arms which his absolute power furnished
him with. He could not again go over what had
been said on the other side touching the manners of
the country of which Miss Paterson was a native—
the description of these voluptuous climes—the en-
chanting banks of the Potomac, of the stream which
flows 30 leagues from Baltimore—of the character
of the populations of the Southern States, so diffe-
rent from those of the North. He would not remind
them that Baltimore is to the not th of the grave of
Washington, that Maryland is to the north of Vir-
ginia, and that Virginia itself is not in the south.
lie would omit all this display, of geographical
science, which was only for the purpose of injuring
the reputation of her for whom he appeared. The
very age of Miss Paterson had been altered. She
was born on the Gth of Feb., 1785; she was, then,
on her marriage not 21 years, as had been said, but
18. This was important, because this young lady,
the child of honourable parents, had been repre-
sented to the Court as one born under a corrupting
climate, with light and easy morals, impassioned,
and exposing herself to every risk ; and words had
been attributed to her which could only be put in
the mouth of the most abandoned ; words attributed
to the woman who had selected this Court as her
judges, a woman who at the age of 75 had crossed
the ocean to claim from the bench protection for
her honour. " Yet," cried M. Berryer—
"My adversary has been forced to deny, as it
were, his own words, and pay a striking homage to
my client—Madame Paterson, he admitted, had re-
signed herself with dignity when the days of en-
chantment had fled. She cherished the sacred me-
mory of the past. Since she could not be the wife of
Jerome Bonaparte, she would be the wife of no
one ; and when she regained her freedom by the
American as welt as the French law, she remained
alone and respected, sharing her existence with her
child. This is what you have been forced to admit
—this young woman of 18, abandoned at 20, re-
mained all her life in virtuous celibacy ; she re-
mained the object of general respect ; and this is
the person you had the courage to outrage. Yet
she had suffered too long and too much not to see
herself exposed, in the presence of French judges,
to the moat insulting imputations. Why is it that
the beauty, the character, the morals, and the purity
of my client have thus been degraded by you ? It is
because it was absolutely necessary to establish that
the marriage had not been contracted in good faith."
Berryer then referred to a letter emanating from
a Mr. Goold, of the Rue Neuve St. Augustin, 33,
who placed himself at the disposal of Prince Napo-
leon, in order to justify the respectful desire he had
to give the Prince information about the marriage
at Baltimore. He says that in that country the mar-
riage was not considered serious; that it was a popu-
lar tradition in Maryland that Miss Paterson had
run the risk of finding herself at the end only a
morganatic wife. What this obliging gentleman
implied the court might guess. The other side had
tried to show that the young naval officer had been
the victim of a kind of violence ; but M. Berryer
maintained that the marriage was contracted in
good faith, not only by Miss Paterson but also by
M. Jerome Bonaparte. Miss Paterson, born in 1785,
was 18 years old. The mairiage took place after a
correspondence continued for months ; it was the
Spanish Ambassador who demanded the hand of
Miss Paterson, and it was Mr. Paterson who led his
child to the altar. The French Ambassador was in-
vited to the ceremony; he did not attend, but the
reason he would explain. The marriage was cele-
brated the cathedral; the nuptial benediction was
solerenly pronounced by the bishop in presence of the
French consul. The act was inscribed in the public
)--ecords. Could the good faith with which the mar-
:riage was contracted be doubted after that ? It was
accompanied with all the guarantees and with all
the solemnities required by the laws of the country.
Even before the marriage, care was taken to pro-
duce befpre the clerk of the county the license—
that is to say, the document showing that all pre •
liminary conditions the law required had been satis-
Sa much for the good faith of Miss Paterson.
He should show that the same good faith existed
on the part of M. Jerome Bonaparte. Jerome Bona-
parte had been charged with forcing Mr. Paterson
to consent, with having seduced M, Sottin, with
Laving paralysed M. Pichou, the Ambassador and
Consul of France. He bad left France in 1802. He
declared, and the documents laid before the Court
proved, that he was 21 years old. He proved his
ago by his rank as an officer, which he could obtain
only at that age. His commission specified 22 years.
When he embarked for America the law of 1792
was in forcc; and that law permitted children to

contract marriage without the consent of their

parents when they had attained 21 years. At this
epoch of legislative transition, that M. Pichou should

Lave discovered the existence of a new law preserib-

ing nevi conditions for marriage, and that, never

theless, Jerome Bonaparte and the Paterson family
should have sincerely thought that the civil code
was not yet obligatory for a Frenchman who, leav-
ing France while a different law prevailed, found
himself in another hemisphere, I easily understand,
and do not mean to say there was a calculation
which would be odious on the part of Jerome Bona-
parte. his good faith was established, and the
prof was to be found in the correspondence of M.
Pichou himself. Before the' marriage was cele-
brated on the 24th of December many letters were
written by him, extracted from the archives of the
Foreign-0%w,, and of which he had copies. The
real explanation was to be found in a book pub-
lished by bita,. and in which are contained some
important facts. It apptared that a warm alterca-
tion had arisen 'between Jerome Bonaparte and
him; and M. Pichou accused Jerome with having
denounced him. Re mentions that he had ex-
pressed in presence of Jerome Bonaparte his disap-
proval of the rupture of the Peace of Amiens, and
he adds, " M. Jerome Bonaparte, directed no doubt
by those who accompanied him, denounced me on
leaving my house." Jerome Bonaparte wrote to the
Consul from New York en Nov. 18, 1803, explain-
ing what he had written to the French Govern-
ment. The letter contained the following curious
passage :

" Those remarks are reduced to three statements
which you made to me. The first is that if we had
war it was because the first consul desired to revenge
himself for the insulting language of the English
papers against him. To the second you replied to
General Burbell, who *as watching you, that this

country was useful for a militariniaßio be ac-

- -
quainted with, because no one knew what might
happen, and that the First Consul had enough to
do to govern his own country without seeking to
govern others. The third was that the Fre ch were
more enslaved than ever, and that neithe • civil nor
military rights existed in France. This, citizen, is
what I represented to the Consul, and r is is what
you said to me in the carriage in pre nce of Gen.
Burbell and of my secretary. I now ask you if you
would not have acted as I did? I ask you, more-
over, if you would have been as moderate, for you
must remember that I did not answer a word ? I
sneak to you of this affair, citizen, only to let you
know that I have only done my duty."
The fact was, M. Pichou thought that after his
marriage with the daughter of so respectable a
citizen of the United States M. Jerome Nriaparte
might desire to have the pest of ambassador to the
United States, and, what would be more unplea-
sant, General Smith, the brother-in-law of Mr.
Paterson, might want for himself that of ambassa-
dor of the United States to France, and that incon-
venience would result from the family alliance
between the representatives of the two Powers.
Hence the objections of M. Pichou. M. Pichou's
correspondence showed that M. Jerome Bona-
parte was presented to the President Jefferson on
the 23d of October. The marriage was fixed for
the following week, and there could be no doubt
that he informed the President that he was on the
point of marriage with a citizen of the United
States. M. Pichou had promised to bo present at
the marriage, and it was only after having dis-
covered the number of the Moniteur announcing
the promulgation of the Code Civil that he wrote
to M. Bonaparte and Mr. Paterson the letters of
which use has been made. The presentation to the
President, the communication of his intended
marriage to the authorities, the invitations to the
French functionaries, the Consul, and the Ambas-
sador, preclude the idea of a clandestine marriage.
The Ambassador declined the invitation, but the
Consul attended. M. Bonaparte had no wish to
evade the French law, and the correspondence of
M. Pichou proved nothing against his good faith,
and could not prove that anything clandestine was
even intended. He had already shown that the
marriage had been known in France more than a
year before the protest of Madame Letitia—the
mother of Jerome—the only thing which implied an
attack. The papers produced observed that the
marriage had been known in France; consequently
the door was closed to all pretext for annulling it.
M. Berryer maintained that the possession of the
" civil condition" of Madame Paterson was amply
proved. It vas no matter where she and M. Jerome
Bonaparte lived as husband and wife. In the United
States or elsewhere was a matter of indifference;
and the fact of Madame Paterson having lived as
the legitimate wife of Jerome was not less certain.
That possession of " civil condition" lasted to
1806 ; she was always considered by Jerome as
legitimately united to him. His whole correspond-
ence proved the fact, and he repeats to her that for
nothing on earth would he abandon her; that
neither wealth, nor fortune, nor crowns would
tempt him to renounee her. The strange argument
put forward on the other side—namely, that the
second marriage of Jerome was the negation of the
first, was untenable. The violation of the rights
which resulted from the first marriage could not be
a negation of those rights. Jerome Bonaparte had
for three years treated Madame Paterson as his legi-
timate wife, and, forsooth, because he himself was
afterwards faithless to his oaths, to his own letters,
to his affection for the mother of his son, his own
faults could affect the possession of her civil condi-
tion ! Such an argument was monstrous. The pos-
session of the civil condition of the wife was per-
petuated by the civil condition of her son, and the
legitimacy of the latter profited his mother. With
respect to the son the law was most positive, and no-
body could dispute the condition of legitimacy of
him who proved the possession of condition con-
formable to his certificate of birth. He showed that
in the case of Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte (the son)
the legal conditions of such a possession were never
more complete. He showed from the voluminous
correspondence with all the members of the Bona-
parte family that from the moment of his appear-
ance ho was treated as the cherished child of the
family, that when he married his wife was received
as a new member of the Imperial family, and his
son again treated as the nephew and grandson ; and
Cardinal Fesch, the uncle of Napoleon 1., left him a
legacy by his last will. Even after the disappear-
ance or death of many of the family, the surviving
members did not cease to treat him with the same
regard and affection. In 1854 the present Emperor
informed AI. Jerome Bonaparte, his cousin, that
the French laws recognised him as legitimate, and
that he informed his uncle (Prince Jerome) that he
(the Emperor) could not consider him in any other
light. M. Berryer held the certified copy of a con-
sultation, specifying that his client had appended a
note to the copy, to the effect that when the Emperor
handed him the consultation, his Majesty named
MM. Troplong, Baroche, and Abbatucci as the per-
sons who had deliberated. M. Troplong, it was true,
now pretended that he had never signed it, and he
(M. Berryer) was bound to believe his word. The
original was daily expected from America, and they
should then, from the handwriting, know who
really had signed it. Be this as it might, the son
of M. Jerome Bonaparte, his client, had obtained
rank in the French army by reason of his relation-
ship to the Imperial family—an exorbitant privi-
lege which a private citizen had never been able to
obtain, and which could b 2, explained only by that
relationship. Prince Napoleon wrote to his client
in July, 1834, as follows :

"My dear Jerome,—l have received your letter
with great pleasure, as well as the few words added
by your son. How I regret not to be at Paris !
During the 14 years that we have not seen each
other fortune has brought a great change in my
existence. I have passed through many situations,
but I am happy that our friendship continues the
same. It is with real satisfaction that those family
feelings and personal sympathies are cherished. I
appreciate them all the more that such is not the
case with all my relations, especially with my
sister, whom I only see as a stranger. These sad
reflections should not issue from my pen at a mo-
ment that I feel so much joy in recalling our fra-
ternal recollections.

"I do not know what the effect of this war (with
Russia) reserves for me; I hope that before winter
something will be decided. A thousand loves to
your son, whom I embrace and love already for all
the good things they write me about him.
" Your affectionate brother,
" NAPOLEON BONAPARTE."

M. Berryer read, commenting on certain passages,
the letter written by the late Prince Jerome to his
nephew, the present Emperor, complaining that, as
he now called them, " the son and grandson of Miss
Paterson," the same whom in his former letters he
designated as " Madame Bonaparte and M. Jerome
Napoleon Bonaparte," had come to France in order
to throw doubts on the legitimacy of his children
by his second marriage and to prepare a scandalous
lawsuit at the opening of his will. M. Berryer
showed there was no danger whatever of any rivalry
as to succession to the crown of France. No one
disputed the legitimacy orthe children of the second
marriage. The present suit was simply about a
question of inheriting a share of the property left
by the deceased Prince—nothing more. The rights
of the defendants were openly acknowledged by his
clients. The Princess of Wurtemberg's father and

uncle may have been deceived, even setting aside
the political circumstances which attended the
marriage, but the perfect good faith of that princess
could not be called in question.
M. Berryer entered into a legal argument to show
that the juridical theory of the counsel on the other
side as to the consequences flowing from the defect
of previous publication in France of the marriage

of Jerome Bonaparte and Miss Paterson was erro-
neous, and that it did not produce nullity of the

marriage. It was meant to inform the family of

the parties, to appeal to all wheivconsent the law
required. If the required consent was not forth-

coming it was a nullity which a certain delay would
cover ; and when the principal nullity was covered,
was it meant that defect resulting from the want of
the necessary formality should subsist and not be
covered ? The year which elapses since a marriage
is brought to the knowledge of the head of the
familycoyers as well the want of publication as the
' want of consent, and this opinion was proved by a
decisions of 'the Court in' the Mayer case in May,
' 1853. He examined at length the imperial decree of
r

Ventose, year XIII., regulating the marriage of the
princess of the Imperial family. That decree was
in itself null and of no effect. The Senatus-Consul-
tum of the year XII. gave him no right on a mar-
riage concluded in 1803. And, moreover, Jerome
Bonaparte, though brother of the Emperor, did not
belong to the Imperial family ; and as for the legis-
lation of 1805 and 1806, it was impossible it could
confer on the head of the family a retroactive power
over:a union formed by a brother who was not called
to succeed to the throne. The decree of the 20th
Ventose was not countersigned by the Secretary of
State, Maret, as all other decrees were. It was not
inserted, ah the law required, in the Ptilletin des
Lois, and in point of fact it was merely a project
of decree, and not a decree, and couiti
not have the
effect of law. After dwelling on this point at some
length, M. I3erryer referred to an incident men-
tioned by Prince Napoleon's counsel at the first
hearing of the case, and which produced the only
manifestation of unrestrained feeling froth the
audience during the day. M. Allou, the Prince's
counsel, had referred, in support of the right of the
head of a reigning family to annul the clandestine
marriage of one of its members, to a marriage said
to have taken place between the Duke of Berry
(father of the Count of Chambord) during his emi-
gration in England, and the presence of the chil-
dren of the issue of that marriage at the moment
the Prince was dying from the wound he received
from the dagger of Louvei at the Opera House on
the night of the 13th February, 1820. When M.
Berryer touched this point every one could perceive
the deep feeling under which the great orator
laboured. His voice, ever clear and melodious, and
audible even in its lowest tones, trembled with
emotion. The Duke of Berry, in the agony of death,
summoned his two illegitimate daughters to his
side, and recommended them to the Duchess, his
wife, who knelt weeping by him.
" You have reminded us," said the orator," rais-
ing his voice, and turning to his adversary, while
the deepest silence prevailed,—
" You have reminded us of the noble conduct of
the Duchess of Berry, who embraced the children
of her husband's youth, and who said to them (you
yourself have repeated the words), ' Come to me,
my children ; hero is my legitimate daughter ;
embrace your sister.' Yes, when I recall that scene,
I cannot help thinking of that last will and testa-
ment in which Prince Jerome forgot both wife and
child, and in which he had not a single word for
either. You say that the Duke of Berry married
in England. It is false ; there was no marriage.
What authority have you ? You say that in 1834 a
lady of the name of Brady, who had composed
romances, published in the Encyclopedic des Gens
do Monde a biographical article, in which these
words appeared—' It was then that he married a
young Englishwoman.' You quote M. de Lamartine
who wrote in 1852 that in London the Duke of
Berry had lived in the mystery of a lasting union
with a person by whom he had two children ;
and finally, you quote the biography of M. Didot,
in which it is said that the Due of Berry married
in London a young Englishwoman whom he
abandoned. It is utterly false! You say that there
are certificates of birth ; that people went to Lon-
don to inspect the marriage registry of 1806, and
that the catalogue refers to a great registry, page
37 ; and that the page was wanting, and conse-
quently that the entry was removed."
M. Berryer said, that the chaplain of the French
chapel had written him two letters, to the effect
that the Chancellor of the French Embassy, after
hating carefully searched the registry, had not dis-
covered the slightest trace of a marriage, or of a
baptism, Ferdinand or Brown. He added that the
registry was intact, and that the page 37 had not
been disturbed, and it attests the marriage in 1821
of one William Brown with a certain Dalila Sailly,
of Etaples. A second letter from the same chaplain
says,—
" I have just seen the Chancellor (of the French
Embassy); he regrets that the adverse party had
not profited by the last clear information he had
sent in order to rectify the mistake of a too hasty
search in the registry."
After showing that there was no foundation
whatever for the statement that the Duke of Berry
had married in England, he said—
" My opponent has not hesitated to tell you that
if the children who were the issue of this illustrious
origin came here this day to claim their rights as
legitimate I should be in his place to reject such
pretensions. Well, then, I believe I have the right
to reply that there is no human being on earth,
however high he may be placed, who would ever
expect from me such condescension. No act of my
life could ever have exposed me to a reproach of
this kind; and permit me to tell you that I may
unburden my heart and finish with the unhappy
resemblance you have attempted—that if the Count
of Chambord himself had ever penned letters like
some of those which Prince Napoleon has written
to his brother, he would not have dared to call to
this bar any ono to support such a repudiation of
relationship."
A burst of applause, with clapping of hands, and
cries of " Bravo !" from the lower end of the hall,
followed this declaration, delivered as it was in a
voice of thunder and with uplifted arm. It lasted
some minutes.

When silence was restored the presiding judge
ordered that the court should be cleared from the
third bench to the door. The officers on duty ex-
pelled a few persons, and order, which was not
again interrupted, was soon restored.
M. Berryer resumed his argument, which he con-
cluded with these words

"My case is whole and entire. I maintain that
it is good, sound, incontestible, in law and right, in
all points. My opponent has said that there had
been in this cause a change in jurisdiction, but not
in justice. Gentlemen, when jurisdiction is changed
there is no longer justice. It is you, our judges,
who contribute justice; justice there is none but
yours. It is to you alone I appeal—to you alone,
and the opinion out of doors, however favourable
that opinion may be to my cause."
M. Berryer's speech lasted more than two hours
and a half. When he concluded the judges retired
for about a quarter of an hour. At two o'clock the
hearing was resumed, and the presiding judge
called upon M. Ailou, advocate for Prince Napoleon,
to reply.

M. Allou commenced by stating that the expla-
nations he had to offer to the Court should be
extremely concise. In fact, a few words would be
quite sufficient to give a true signification to the
circumstances under which the marriage was con-
tracted. The opposite counsel relied on the pub-
licity which attended the marriage solemnized in
the cathedral of Baltimore by the bishop, the parties
being a young girl of 18 years of age, given away
by her father in the presence of the French Consul,
the bridegroom a naval officer of 22. The opposite
advocate forgot, however, the letters of M. Pichou,
the French Consul, and of Admiral Willaumez.
They both declared that they repeatedly warned
young Bonaparte and the Paterson family of the
illegality of the marriage. These were facts not
to be overlooked. The advocate of the Paterson
family insisted on the fact that Jerome Bonaparte
was presented to President Jefferson, and received
by him, as the promised husband of a young Ame-
rican lady. The date, however, of the interview
deprived it of any importance. M. Jerome Bona.
parte arrived Oct. 23, and on the 24th he wds pre-
sented to the President. But it was not until the
afternoon of the 25th that the French Consul was
apprised of the intended marriage. M. Allou in-
sisted particularly on this point, inasmuch as the
remonstrances of the French Consul produced a
rupture between the parties, which was communi-
cated by Mr. Smith, an American senator, brother-
in-law of Mr. Paterson. Counsel then read a letter
from M. Pichou, the French Consul, to Jerome
Bonaparte, dated 27th of October, in which he
told the young officer that by the law of France
thefir
st p
or
bo
tpoai posed
ned
the marriage
consent
s e
ot would
of
hise illegal
mother,
nunlessd, h
as
ae
matter of courtesy, that of his brother, the First
Consul: M. Pichou again wrote to him two days
subsequently, telling him that he had assured
himself that the French law requires a son to
have attained the age of 25 years in order to marry
without the consent of his parents, and that even
in that case he should prove that he had demanded
it. Two months then elapsed. The young people
consented to separate. Having met again, how-
ever, concluded. The
e Frenche r a,
Consulm ar r a
gave weaysidehnacsetiloyf that fact. It was
insinuated that M. Pichou feared to be replaced in
his employment by Jerome Bonaparte. That was

ai trick played by Mr. Smith, who, wishing to be-
come ambassador to the French Republic, forwarded

the marriage in order to become allied to the First