The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-04-30
MARRIED HER OWN FATHER
William Waldorf AStOr Writes About
Nine. RCCamiGT.

| Events Which Lead Him to the Opin-
ion That the Ceremony Was Per-
formed to Escape Vengeance in the
Reign of Terror-A Sensational Ar
ticle in the New Pail Mall.
New York, April 25-A special London
cable to the World contains the following:
Perusal of an advance copy of William
| Waldorf Astor's new magazine, the Pail
Mall, which will be issued this week, dis
closes a general attempt on the part of all
the contributors to write up to Mr.. Astors
literary and social level.
The Countess of Cork succeeds in get
ting quite in touch with the owner of the
magazine in telling article on society,""
| in which she says that entrance to it
cannot be obtained for the gold of Eng
land or the silver of the almighty dollar"
! But Mr. Aston is, after ALL the best
contributor to his own pages, and his
article on mime Recamier' is fully as in
teresting as anything in them, printed or
| illustrated. He tries to prove that Nine.
| Recamier married her own father. NJ.
Recamier was AZ years old when he made
Juliette Bernard his wife; she was
| Is. But let Mr.. Aston tell the story in his
| own words. He writes:
M Recamier treated Juliette with un-
| failing kindness and indulgence, but there
| is no contradiction to be found to the
declaration of many who knew them init
mately that they never lived together as
man and wife This has been accounted
| for by the conjecture that Nine. Recamier
! had an intense adherence of marital rea-
lations, or by surmise imagined after her
death that she suffered from a physical
| intirmity.
Both of these suggestions are effaced
| by the most extraordinary event in her
| life, namely, her resolve in 1907 to sever
her filial relations with M. Recamier and
marry Prince Augustus of Prussia, whose
ardent courtship and passionate love let
| tiers must have given her doubtful init
| nation that he would prove a most un-
| platOnic husband.
"1he letters exchanged between the
| Rccamiers at this strange iuncturc are
i probably among the most remarkable
| ever penned to one another by husband
and wife.
Mime. Recamier calmly declares that,
| yielding to the assiduities of the Prince
| of Prussia, as well as to her own inclina-
ton, she contemplates severing the bond
that has joined them for thirteen years.
TO this mOnStrOuS announcement NJ
| Recamier replies with temper, combining
| himself to expressions of chagrim, that
| divorce with it's attendant scandal should
| em6itter his last years now that in the
| twilight of life he had grown intrm,
| needy and friendless, living upon the frag-
ments of the fortune he had wrecked
But he admitted that the tie which
| united them was one the church would de
! clare null, and agrees, if Juliette requires
| IL, TO meet her at some place outside
| France, where they can concert the legal
| measures to be taken and seek to mOder-
ate the scandal he breads in Paris.
| Compliance ina husband rarely goes
| further. But this astonishing situation
explains itself if we may believe that NJ
Recamier was addressing, not his wife
| but his daughter.
The marriage of Jacques Recamier
| with Juliette took place precipitately
April "A, 1893, in the midst of the reign of
| terror As rich man and an aristocrat
| the banker had suddenly found himself
'suspecte' The Bernard family. on the
contrary, were violent republicans.
In those days to become 'suspocte' US
ually resulted in visit to the guillotine.
| Those were days and nights of swift and
| appalling danger, and it is coniectured
( that an extreme peril led to the device,
which probably Nine. Bernard imagined
TO avert suspicion from her former lover
dictionary family. This artifice of mar
riage was perhaps intended merely as
| an eXpedient for few months, until the
fury of the storm was spent, but it lasted
a lifetime
1T cannot surprise one to know that
when she had grown old Nine Recamier
loved solitude and the reveries TO which
sweet soft music inclincs No wonder
either that she invariably refuses to go
through the mockery of writing her
memoirs.
What an empty recapitulation they
would have been without some allusion to
the circumstances of which she was the
living victim and what marvellous medita-
tions and souvenirs must have been hers,
who was married. yet had no husband
who was loved and worshiped
as may fall to the lot of one
woman in century, vet who loved
no man unreservedlv through all the
fiction and unreality of her life: who re-
pelled the amorous advances of Bona
parte, and was punished by him with
years of exile, yet lived to see his stu
pendous fall whose girlhoOd was passed
amid the anguish and bloodshedding of
the revolution, and whose latter years
faded away in the GREATNESS calm that
succeeded the exhaustion of the Ma.
poleonic wars.
But above all. through those silent
musings, how sharply must have rung the
minor key, the undertOne of tears in
the bitterness of regret for her youth
that had gone, and which, however bril-
liant before the world, had been empty
and heartless and cold beneath the
weight of her extraordinary secret"
Worlds Fair Souvenir.