The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-01-11
p> ARIS, January 10.-The Le Play Marcile elopemcnt has been one
 of tba y,oet aopsnicuoi1a events

0 Marcile elopement has been one
 R of the most conspicuous events of the early year. It had the merit of originality and twentietn-century mod ernity. The dash and daring of the lovers the part Mme. Bob Walter played in helping them to run away, the vehicle she provided them with, and in short, the whole affair, makes 1t unique in the records of famous elopements. Had Doc tor Marcile hurried Mile. Cordelia Le Play into d cab instead of into a motor car and driven off to railway ter minus, Paris perhaps. would not have felt so interested in them, and so well inclined to regard the situation they created as equivalent to a regular status. That fleet motor ear, with its long red body, coupled with the statements Of Mme Bob Walter, a ci-devant divette and now hirer-out of motors, enlists general sympathy with the fugitives-no- body can exactly tell why. Perhaps the swift locomotion of the last three or four years is associated with the notion of freedom. It accords with the fitness of things for young lady to profit by the lightning pace of the motor to em- ancipate herself from the paternal veto upon a marriage with the man she loves The 77S5 divorces in the course Of the present year may have also seemed to justify her in the bold step she took. Those divorces. accepted we may as sume husbands provided for them by their parents.
 Descriptions of the runaway pair were
 IT, al Dfad by M Le Play, the young lady's father. Though he is furious with her, he did full justice to her charming appearance. Stature tall; figure slim and elegant; hair fair touched with gold; eyebrows dark; eyelashes black; face oval; nose long, rather thick at the end, complexion fair. The companion of her flight Is painted as being thirty, of corpulent and ex- tremcly muscular figure with curly au. burn hair, small black moustache, round face, round prominent black eyes, flat nose, fiorid complexion. very large hands. and remarkably short nails. Does not your fancy add the jacket and apron of a butchers assistant? The hand that penned the description is no friendly one. But l do not say that the portrait Is not likeness. M. Marcie is a young surgeon. The corpulence, the muscles the forid- ness, and the very large hands and short nails, denote the man or acton, apt to make dash and to get through suc- cessfully.
 NJ. Le Plays portrait of his daughter shows her in all but the nose, rather thick at the end to be the granddaugh- ter of the late Michel Chevalier Cob den's frenD whom I used to know. He was very fair, had very tall, 1.-the fig ure and long face. He began life on very independent. not to say eccentric, footing; for he joined the Saint-Simon- fans, entered, under Enfantin, their "con- vent" at Menilmontant wore their pecu- liar dress believed in the Eternal Moth er and advocated poyandrous liberty for her sex When persecution dispersed Enfantin and his disciples. Chevalier made a tour in the United States and Mexico He saw among the Mormons the opposite pole of the Saint-Simonian theory of feminine freedom. He came home married. went over to the empire entered the senate of Napoleon III, lived in a roomy, but not very luxuriantly fur nished flat in the Rue de I pUniversite. be- tween a grand-loolSing courtyard and a garden, and had three daughters, who shared his life completely He used to look so happy and beaming with them round him, and he attended himself to their education But I am sure that he never preached before them the gospel according to Saint-Simon. The grand daughter may, perhaps, have inherited