The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-06-25

With more generosity, and with greater
degree of material solicitude for the well
| rare Of Its children, 1t does not how
| ever, brand with the stigma of bastardy
| the innocent offspring of unions thus an
| nulled, but recognizes them as in every
| respect legitimate, one of the most no
table cases in point being that of the
| young Crown Prince of Monaco the
marriage of whose parents was annulled
| by the vatican on the ground that the
lads mother, Lady Mary Hamilton, sis
| ter of the late Duke of Hamilton, had
been forced to wed Prince Albert of
Monaco against her will by her mother,
| the late Princess Marie of Baden, and by
her kinsman, Napoleon III. Lady Mary
Is today the wife Of Count Tassilo Fes-
teticz, one of the grandest territorial
| magnates of Hungary, as well as a
great dignitary of the Magyar court,
while the Prince of Monaco is today the
husband Of an American born Hebrew
| lady, daughter Of the New Orleans
banker, Michael Heine, and who at the
time of her marriage to the prince was
the widow Of the French Duke of Rich
ellen.
This Monooa case may serve as a dem
onstration of at least one of the causes
for which the Catholic church grants an
nulment of marriage. 1t takes the
ground that free consent on both sides
is an essential point of marriage as Of
every other contract On this point
American law and the law of the Roman
Catholic church are at one. According
to either legislation If q woman has been
constrained by undue influence, material
or even moral, to repeat with her lips
words to which her heart has never con-
sented, or has been obliged by duress or
terror to submit to acts which she would
never have permitted if she had been a
hoe
tract, and therefore no marriage
CHURCH BALKS ADVENTURER
l cannot recall an instance of this kind
In the American courts. But it is not so
long ago that the English tribunals an
nuled the marriage between Capt Ar
thur Sebright and Miss Scott, elder sis
ter of the Countess of Russell, on the
ground that the lady had been induced
by fear to become the wife of the cap
tain.
Another instance in which the Roman
Catholic church is always ready to grant
an annulment of marriage is where the
wedding ceremony has been duly cele-
brated, but where the parties have never
lived together. A case in point took
place only last year in Scotland A Cath
Ole girl of 16 and of good social position
made the acquaintance of an apparently
distinguished foreigner of the name of
De LaubenQue who had a coronet on the
corner Of his northumberland and
presented the susceptible damsel with
fine grapes which he asserted were grown
on the walls Of his ancestral chateau in
France. The consent of the young lady's
father was eventually secured, and the
marriage was celebrated in the Catholic
cathedral in Edinburg. At the conclu-
sion Of the ceremony the brides father
who had only that morning been in
formed that French law declines to &C.
lyrn yIA5rr =
less the parents of the husband, as well
as of the wife, consent to the match,
properly insisted that M. de Laubenque
before claiming his bride, should proceed
to Paris and secure the authorization Of
his parents to the marriage. The bride
groom departed, but failed to return.
Moreover, he turned out to be an adven-
turer in the sense of having grossly de-
ceived both the girl and her parents as
to his position and prospects, and finally
he declined in the most peremptory man
ner to return to the bride, whom he had
left at the altar. Under the circum-
stances the girls parents brought the
case before the Catholic archbishop of
Edinburg, who, after taking evidence to
show that the two parties had parted at
the altar and had never lived together,
forwarded the testimony to the vatican,
where the pope, on the advice of the con-
gregation Of the council, granted the
usual dispensation annuling the mar
rage. Subsequently the lady legalized
the effect of this ecclesiastical decision
by proceedings in the local divorce court,
with the object of removing the obstacles
which. the civil law might place in the
way of giving full effect to the papel de-
ciSion.
GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE.
Constraint, and absence of constraint.
as well as failure on sufficient ground
to live with one another, as in the case
of the Laubenques above mentioned, are
the grounds on which annulments of
rarriSSe are the most frequently granted
by - Roman Catholic church Of
course there are instances where improp
er advantage is taken of this liberality
of the Vatican Thus, I remember an
extraordinary scene which I witnessed
at a wedding In Austrian-Pol at ono
of the castles of the aristocracy in the
neighborhood of Cracow. was standing
with the other guests in the grand salon
preparatory to making our way to the
castle chapel. where the religious cere-
mony was about to be performed by the
archbishop Of Cracow, when suddenly
the mistress OF the house, the Princess
P, dainty, delicate-looking lady of
most soft, gentle, and carressing man
ners, swept up to her only daughter. the
bride, and struck her with her open hand
on the cheek blow, the smack Of which
could be heard by nearly all present. In
fact, the marks of the fingers of the prin-
cess were left on the cheek of her
daughter, who at cnce bent and kissed
the hand of her mother, the latter in
turn. embracing the girl in the most af-
fectionate manner. On asking for an ex-
PLANTATION of this little episode, 1 was
informed that 1t was the invariable Gus
tom of Polish mothers to box the ears
of their daughters on the day of the lat
ter's marriage, SO that If later on the
union turned out unhappily the girl
might have valid pretext for demanding
the annulment of her union by the church
on the ground that she had been forced
to marry against her will by her mother.
There are several other causes. for
which ecclesiastical annulment of mar
rage is granted. They are, however,
80 rarely invoked nowadays as to rem