New-York tribune., 1910-01-26
NOT A MoRGANATIc UNION.

Baroness Vaughan has dropped her title
as sucn' and has reverted to her patronymic
OF Delacroix. which. however, she now
writes IN more patrician manner. name
~ as de Lacroix." According to an off,
ciai announcement by Cardinal Mercier
frnnate of Belgium. her relations with
hlhe Leopold received the tardy blessing
or the Church through a marriage cere-
mcny performed by the dean of Iaeken
on December Z; that is to say. exactly
eleven days before the death of the mon
arch
II must be understood thoroughly that
while this deathbed marriage set Leopold
Flsht IN the eyes OF the Church and en-
@pIeo MIN TO receive the last sacraments
ana Christian burial with the full rites
OF the Church, it did not in the eyes of
the law affect the status Of Caroline Della
croix nor of the children which she had
borne him.
IL was not even q morganatic marriage.
and this is a fact which deserves to be
emphasized, for the morganatic wife and
children have full f1edged legal status.
They are the lawful wife and the lawful
issue Of d. perfectly lawful marriage The
only thing is that, owing TO the inequality
or the rank between the contracting par
ties, the wife is not raised to the rank of
the husband, from which the children are
likewise excluded. Provision is made for
norganatic marriages in the codes of GER
tain OF the uonarchical countries of Europe,
but not in others; and IL is as the lawful
wife of Archduke Francis Ferdinand that
the Duchess of Hohenberg has now been
officially received at the courts OF Vienna
and OF Berlin, although her marriage. like
her children, is morganatfc There is
therefore. a big difference between a NOR
ganatic marriage and a solely religious
union, such as that contracted on his
oeathbed by the late King Leopold. and for
which the Germans have invented the name
'Gewissensche"-that is TO say, a union of
conscience
Leopold's jvo little boys by Caroline
Delacroix remain in an unfortunate posi-
tion. For he did not even legally recognize
them as his illegitimate offspring before
his death In the birth certificate of the
elder the father is officially set down as
unknown" and IN the birth certificate of
the younger boy the father is described as
unnamed
I see that Baron Eppnghoven, who rep
resented the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg
Gotha at the obsequies of King Leopold,
has been described the latter's morgan
attic brother. This is not correct. For
Leopold I was never married to the baron's
mother, Arcade Claree, who was at the
time the wife of another man of the name
Of Meyer, whose patronymic the baron re-
ceived ar his birth
Nor was Leopold I ever married to the
celebrated actress Caroline Bauer, who
helped to console him during his first wild
owhood, that is to say. after the death
OF George Tvs only daughter, Princess
Charlotte of Wales On his election to the
throne Of Belgium he directed her 10 style
herself Countess of Montgomery" but
parted from her couple of years later,
when he married Princess Louise of Or
leans, daughter OF King Louis Philippe.
Caroline Bauer, Countess Montgomery
thereupon married eccentric Polish
nobleman of the name Of Count de Broele-
Platter, founder of the well known Polish
museum at Rapperswyl, in Switzerland. and
died in October. 1873, at her husbands place,
the Villa Broelberg. on the lake of Zurich.
MARQUISE DE FONTENOY.