The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-01-11
CURRENT TOPICS IN PARIS
BY PlERR E RoSIER.
Elopement by Automobile Description of the Pair Photographed All Over France.

his early passion for freedom and his ln- clination to attack institutions that so- cfety held sacred. One of the three daugh- ters of Chevalier is the wife of that dis tinguished economist M. Leroy-Beaulieu, who has a chair at the College of France and in the late MT T. B. Potters time used to attend regularly the Cobden club banquets. Another is the wife Of Deputy Flourens, eX-rninister for Tor eign affairs, and author of euloglstlc work on Alexander IT. The third is the wife of M. Le Play. His father pub lished two ponderous volumes to prove that the regeneration of France depended on two great changes-the abrogation Of that article of the civil code which de- bars the father from disposing of his property by will, and unlimited instead of strictly limited, families. This M. Le Play st ood high on official ground un- der the empire and acted as president of the imperial commission for the Uni versal exhibition of 1867. Tn that char acter he took a prominent place in all the brilliant fetes in that year
 Mme. Bob Walter, who has turned this elopement to such an advertising account is an ex-musical hall celebrity. Her real name is Mime. Dupre. She lives in flat almost as richly furnished as Wanda de Boucza's, but is a more agreeable per- son. and, as she says herself, an absolute Parisi enne. One of the lovers had to take her into his confidence, and she had an account, which she gave the pa- pers, of the motor-car part of the elope- ment. and the warm welcome the fugi- tives met with from comrades of M. Marcile at house where they alighted to change clothes, warm themselves, and dine near Chantilly.
 The previous engagement with parental consent of the runaway lovers is in French eyes a very eXtenuating cfrcum- stance. They had been acquainted ten years before the engagement. M. Le Play thought well to break off the match agreed on, to secure a wealthier one. Ills daughters despair toox utterance in clandestine love letters, and she asked M. Marcile to carry her off on certain evening as she would be leaving the opera house He went at her bidding in & Bob Walter motor-car. But it got en- tangled In the horse-drawn equipages.
 M. Le Play is said to become each day more obdurate His daughter can get married in the eyes of the church in Italy But a religious ceremony there would not count in the eyes of French judges, and she cannot overcome the parental veto for two years, she being only eighteen. But she can, In spite or her father refuse to quit Dr. Marcile, whose professional prospects are good. Before the lovers ran away they offered to renounce her right to a dowry in M. Le Plays lifetime, or after his death to her share of his fortune, If he would only consent to their marriage. This also is counted very extenuating circumstance and confirms the idea that Dr. Marcile is a man. But because he Is a man, he may prove q domestic ty- rant. Those very large hands, very short nails, corpulency, and muscles, those round prominent eyes, wide nostrils and that fattish nose hardly denote high in- tellect or a gentle refined nature. He is said by his comrades to be fond of making jokes, and they think that he must have cracked a few at the expense of M. Le Play and thus offended him. At the house students table of l for get what hospital he served as the funny man. He represented among them surg cry. His sister is married to the head of a pharmaceutical department The Marciles are hardly in social rank on so high a plane as the Le Plays, but this would not matter if the doctor came out as a prince of science.