The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1870-11-17
IMPERIAL SCANDAL.
Napoleon and Marguerite BclInugcr-Dis-
closures of His Letters to be Kept
what the First Judge of the Empire Did.

Napoleon and Marguerite BcIInugcr-Dis-
closures of Ills Letters to be Kent -
what the First Judge of the Empire Did.
You have already received, suppose,
copies of those two letters of Marguerite
Bellanger which were found in the i'm
perial cabinet at the Tuileries, tied with
rosc-colored ribbon, and labelled in Ma
poleon's handwriting, "Letters to be
kept" You must not suppose that the
story-in many of its. phases the very
old story-of Marguerite aBellanger is
altogether revelation to the Parisians.
What is new is the questionable patcr-
nifty of little boy, and the disgraceful
part played by the first Judge of the en-
pire in an affair of this kind. But all
Paris can attest the truth of the reitera-
ted statement of the letter to her impe-
rial lover, that he had done "a very
great deal for her." Marguerite Bellan-
gers horses, carriages, dogs, jewelry, and
loud dresses were well known in the
Bois de Boulogne, and every cabman
knows the snug and gorgeously furnished
mansion on the Rue dc Verneuil, where,
within stones throw of the Avenue
des Champs Elysees. in which he took
his official promenade with the empress,
the emperor was wont to pass hours of
idleness with Marguerite Bellanger.
Only at the beginning of this year, and
some time after President Devienne had
effected an arrangement, husband was
found for the lady. On the occasion of
her marriage, she objected that her ho-
tel in the Rue de Verneuil smelt of the
stables, and thereupon the emperor gave
her sumptuous palace in the Avenue
de Ia Refine Hortense, which, in her
marriage settlement, published in the
Figaro of the time, was valued at l,500,-
900 francs. Her sale in the Rue de Ver-
neuil produced 100000 francs, and she
bought in some magnificent gobelin ia
pestry with the cypher of the crown,
logue to excite curiosity. The husband
assigned to her was an employee in
linendraper's shop; but as his function
was to keep the books, she rather wittily
said of him that be was not trades
man, but man of letters. Writing this,
as I am now doing, in the very house
(now a hoteI in which Madame de la
Valiere was boru, l csn only wonder
that such .joyeuSetes du Roi indulged in
by the late successor to the throne of
Louis XIV, should have required such
ponderous machinery as that of the in
tervention of chief justice to hush
them up. The antecedents of Louis Ma
poleon Bonaparte are such that no addi-
tional instance of q breach of the sew
enth commandment could damage his
reputation. From variety of oircum-
stances L believe the explanation of the
extreme anxiety which made him invoke
the assistance of President Devienne to
be this: : At time when the prince i'm
perial was in very bad health, he was
certainly under the impression whether
truly or not) that he was the father of
Marguerite Bellanger's boy. Imparting
his grief to her at the prospect of being
deprived of posterity, she, in melting
moments, got him to listen to her COM
placently, when she said that her son
was his, and that, apart from social
conventions which he might overrule,
the direct line of the Napoleons was in
any event assured. The emperor, who
had so long been in the habit of treat
ing France as his "wash-pot," and who
had reserved to himself by his constitu-
ton an absolute power to adopt an heir
to the exclusion of Prince Napoleon,
might very we'll have caressed the idea
over cigarette that if he lost his legiti-
mate son, his power and might would be
equal to the achievement of plebiscite
conferring his adoption on an illegiti-
mate one. Later, the prince imperial
got better; the empress rebelled against
the Marguerite Bellanger scandal; and
moment came when the emperor
thought it expedient to obtain disa-
vowal from Miss Margaret of his pater-
nifty of her child at any price. NJ. De-
vienne, at the time when he soiled his
ermine with this dirty business, was
first president of the imperial court, 4. e.,
the second judge of the empire. AS a
reward for services which the lowest
pettifogging attorney would have been
ashamed to own, he was promoted to
the highest judicial Office in the gift of
the crown, namely, the presidency of
the court of Cassation. He is now i'm
peached for disgracing the bench. His
brother judges and subordinates in the
supreme court must try him according
10 law; and, although they were all i'm
perialists three weeks ago, it is not
doubted that in the present temper of
the times they will find him guilty, and
sentence him to dismissal.-1ours
(France) Cor. ". Y. Tribune.