The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1861-02-12
THE AMERICAN BoNAPARrE CASE,

ALL <ANEihlSAN bONA1 AM Il CASE.
correspondent of the Independence Beige gives
the following as the arguments that will be pro-
duced in the great case now engrossing the atten-
tiop of the people of France and this country, and
especially the citizens of Baltimore, where one of
the chief actors now lives and still makes her
home:
In the name of the first wife and her children.
they commence by invoking the law locus reoit
dctum by which the marriage at Baltimore is valid,
and which was publicly celebrated in accordance
with the rites of the Catholic Church, and of the
received forms of the United States that the mar
rlage contract was perfectly understood by the
parents of the young man, who, without opposing
it, gave their tact consent. In admitting even
that the consent of the mother, whose absence is
alone considered sufficient reason to nulliy it, had
not been given, the mother should in order to
have the nullihcation pronounced, have gone
before the Court within year from the time
when her son should have attained the age CONNIE
tent to form marriage by himself art $50. c.
civ. But Madame Laetitia relies on protest which
not having followed Judicial demand, is without
power. We add that the two DEGREES of the tn
and 3Oh Ventose xiii. have not been able to effect
that which the courts alone had the right to do
There are here arbitrary acts which ought to have
force, and it is useless to attempt to give them
strength, unless they fall back on the juridiction
ecceptionelle that the Senate of the % Floyeal
and % Prajrial Gu XII. gave to the Emperor, re-
erring to the members of his family; for these last
acts cannot have double effect and the Emperor
mad no right and no power to pass on the validity
ana the Euihty of a marriage contracted BY one of
MS brothers previous to the establishment of the
empire when his own consent was not absolutely
necessary to make such marriage valid They a.
so contest the official decisions at Paris and of the
decision of the family-the first as havin emanaed
from tribunal long since abolished and contrary to
the rights of the French peoples the second as not
being based the question of the actual law sut.
having been rendered out of the presence of Madame
Patterson, and in any case it being illegal to pro-
nounce on the nulity ola first marriage as demanded
by the children of the second, Art. c., civ whiIe
refusing to the former the right to institute SINH
lar action during the life of their father specially
in the name of NJ. Bonaparte; they would place
under the empire the principles of richt which
puts all condensation in the situation of the child
of whom the birth is conformed to the possession
of the State; lastly, they ask the application of
the provisions of article POI du code ciuiI, which
declares that marriage declared null produced
nevertheless the civil results whether re gard
ing the husband the children if he has contract
ed it in good faith.
In the name of Prince Napoleon it is commended
that the union of Jerome Bonaparte with Miss
Patterson has never presented the features of lie.
gal marriage; that it is clandestine union which
has been formed by young officer of nineteen
years of age without the authority of his military
superors, without the consent of the head of bis
family, who was also the chief of the State with
out the appreciation of his mother and without the
necessary publicity in his country that the parties
to the marriage themselves had so well understood
the irregularity of the marriage that in the con-
tract of matrimony they have provided for any
in which it might be annulled; that as soon as
it became known in France it was followed bv q
protest from Madame Mere, and by two DEGREES de-
clarng the radical nulty of the marriage con.
tracted that these DEGREES having been issued bv
the Emperor in the Council and State and con-
formally to the right of jurisdiction with which he
is invested by the political law in reference to eve
rything concerning his family affairs the authority
cannot be misunderstood; that in regard to the
decision de Poiciale, its effect has only been to
sever the religious bond tie civil bond has been
severed and that reduced to these terms its value
could not be contested that in view the new stua
ton in which Miss Patterson and her son have been
placed by the different acts which have been al
uded to, has beer accepted by them, and followed
by acts of high Importance; that also during the
existence of the Empire, Miss Patterson received
from the Emperor the sum of sixty thousand francs
which she could not have considered other than
the price of her resignation; that, besides I'D to
very recently, neither herself nor her SON ever
went by the name of Bonaparte in France; that, in
short, the offence of candestine connection. to
which the marriage contracted in America is ex.
posed, is an obstacle to the invocation of the bepe
fits which the law extends to marriages contracted
in good faith.
Such is the ground upon which this great histo-
rcal process must be based involving as does the
highest questions of our public and our private
rights, and to which the abilities OF the advocates
will doubtless impart all the ecnt which belongs to
it.