The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-28 00:00:00

THE CASE OF PATERSON V. BONA-

PAR2E.

A letter from Paris dated Friday evening says :

—" I have this moment left the court where the
great case of Paterson v. Bonaparte is going on.
Berryer—the illustrious Berryer, who was called to
the bar just fifty years ago—spoke for four hours
and a half without a moment's interruption. I
speak literally : the court did not ride for refresh-
ment until he had done, at about half-past three
o'clock. I came away with great regret in the
midst of M. Allou's speech for Prince Napoleon in
order to send you these hurried lines by this even-
ing's post.

I must assume that by the publications made in
London you are already familiar with the leading
facts of the case, and in attempting to give a sketch
of the tenor of the arguments used to-day I shall
touch principally upon those points which prior
statements seem to leave in need of explanation.l I
may at once say that the question whether Jerome
Bonaparte, when he married Miss Paterson, was 19
or 22, is admitted on both sides to be unimportant.
It is clear that the new law of March, 1803, which
altered the provisions of that of 1792, was known in
the United States at the time of his marriage, that
he was bound by the new law, and was even
affected by express notice of it given him by M.
Pichon, then the French charge d'affaires at Wash-
ington, who did his utmost to prevent the marriage
from taking place. It is equally clear that by this
new law he was a minor so long as he was under
the age of 25, and that his marriage as a French
subject could not regularly be solemnised without
the consent of his surviving parent (Madame Le-
tizia:Bon aparte), which consent M. Berryer admits
there is no proof that he ever obtained. The new
law also provided that a marriage of a French
subject abroad should be preceded by the pub-
lication of banns in France, and that, it is
admitted, was done in the present case. The
two great questions are-Ist. 'Whether the mar-
riage was void, or only voidable; and 2d,
Supposing it to be voidable only, whether the pro-
test against the marriage which Madame Letizia
Bonaparte was made to sign by Napoleon I. was
good in form, as being a reclamation in the sense of
the code, and made in time in accordance with the
provision that it should be made " within twelve
months" of the time when the parties, whose con-
sent was requisite for a regular marriage, "had
knowledge" of the fact of the marriage having
taken place. lam disposed to think, judging from
the tenor of the commencement of M. Allou's speech
that he himself will not, as a lawyer, lay any great
stress upon the various shameful and self-contra-
dictory devices which Napoleon I. resorted to in
order to have the marriage annulled both civilly
and religiously. The assumption in the defendant's
written pleadings that the matter has been decided
by " sovereign power," may, I already feel per-
suaded, be dismissed, as M. Berryer dismisses it, as
"idle and devisory." The true questions, I repeat,
are-1. Whether the marriage was void ab initio,
and 2. Whether, supposing it to be only voidable,
it was voided in legal form and in proper time.
The court to-day was as full as it could possibly
hold. Some tickets for reserved places had been
given by the President, but a considerable space
was still left when the doors were opened, for a
rush by young :barristers and the general public.
There Was no attempt to pack the audience, and
many who had the patience to wait for two or three
hours at the door for admission, met with the
reward which they deserved. The proceedings
were opened by M, Legrand avoue for Mrs.
Elizabeth Paterson, presenting the following con-
clusions :

That it may please the tribunal to declare the marriage
contracted on Dec. 24, 1803, between the late Prince
Jerome and Elizabeth Paterson valid.

And also to take judicial cognisance (manner aete) that
M. Bonaparte, while demanding that the marriage of De-
cember 24, 1803, may be declared valid, has never had any
intention to contest, and does not now contest, the civil
and political effects of the union contracted in 1807 by his
father with the Princess Catharine of Wertemburg.
M. Berryer, in his exordium, said :

The high authority of justice, whose majesty should
everywhere, and always, be respected, is a guarantee that
I will introduce no matter foreign to the cause. The
crowded state of the court is to me a warning that, far from
seeking to gratify vain curiosity, I must confine myself to
the strict discussion of the legal question. I will abridge
as far as possible the statements already before you in my
written memorial—a memorial not published prematurely
or containing statements which can possibly be contested.
(This was in answer to a recent paragraph in the Moniteur.)
My client. Madame Paterson. the divorced wife and now
the widow of the late Prince Jerome Napoleon, has waited
nearly sixty years for this day, and now, faithful to the
conduct from which she has never swerved, she crosses the
Atlantic at the age of 75, and is here before you to ask the
justice of a French court. In recapitulating the facts of
the case, as stated in the memorial, M. Berryer dwelt at
great length upon the recognition of M. Bonaparte by all
the imperial family during a long series of years as their
relation, arguing from this fact that notoriety, in accord-
ance with the register of his baptism was, in the terms
of the code, indisputable evidence of his status, as a

legitimate child, He exposed the flagrant contradic-
tion of the imperial proceedings in pretending to judge
by a " family council"—a special tribunal, which con-
fessedly had no jurisdiction, except over members of the
imperial family—that M. Bonaparte was no member of
it. He laboured at great length to show that the marriage
in question, although objected to at the time by the French
charge d'Affaires, was not " clandestine," or made " in
fraud of the French law ;" that it was only voidable for
want of proper publications and the maternal consent ; that
no legal step was over taken to set the marriage aside, and
that the first Napoleon's desperate attempts to treat the
marriage as void—his repeated decrees, containing implied
admissions that all his former acts against the marriage
had been efficacious—his correspondence with the Pope,
who refused to annul the marriage—and his rejection of
the legal opinion of the Arch-Chancellor Cambaceres,
whose advice he asked : all showed the knowledge of
Napoleon I. that nothing but a judicial decision—which it
was now too late to ask for—could set the marriago aside.
He concluded by expressing his belief that the judgment
of the court would confirm him in that respect for the
bench which he had cherished through a long life.
M. Allou—a fluent and very good speaker, and
a first-rate advocate, although comparatively little
known—opened the case for Prince Napoleon. He
was bold enough to say that the eloquent advocate
opposed to him had very little hopes of winning
his cause. The case was overlaid with romance,
mo
which, from the lapse of time, it was difficult to
refute. While speaking st respectfully of Missrefute.
Paterson and her family, he could not help saying
the facts of the case bore out the statement to be