plurality of wives. Out of the empire, the custom was not more successful. Several Polish kings tried the practice of morganatic bigamy, but became very unpopular in consequence: and King Emmanuel of Portugal, who died in 1580, and left a son by a morganatic union, utterly failed in getting him adopted by the states of the realm. "We cannot advise that the license of bore the title of Counts of the Palatinate. marrying more wives than one be publicly But the son of the elector by Charlotte of introduced, and, as it were, ratified by law. Hesse succeeded to the throne without proIf anything were allowed to be known on test. Public opinion, meanwhile, had dethe subject, your Highness easily compre-clared itself strongly against the open bighends that it would be understood and re- amy of Prince Charles Ludwig; and though ceived as a precept, whence much scandal morganatic marriages continued to flourish and many difficulties would arise. Your in Germany, his was the last involving a Highness should be pleased to consider the excessive scandal, that the enemies of the Gospel would exclaim that we are like the Ana-baptists, who have adopted the practice of polygamy, and that the Evangelicals, as the Turks, allow themselves the license of a plurality of wives. . . . But in certain cases, there is room for dispensation. For example, if any one detained captive in a foreign country, should there take to himself a second wife, for the good of his body and health. In this and like cases, we do not know by what reason a man could be condemned who marries an additional wife, with the advice of his pastor; not with the purpose of introducing a new law, but of satisfying his own necessity. Nevertheless, even in this case, the marriage ought to take place secretly, so that no scandal may arise." The upshot was, that Landgrave Philip of Hesse kept his second morganatic spouse, and induced others to do the like. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the matrimonium ad legem morganaticam came to attract the attention of the highest legal authorities in Europe, owing to an attempt, on the part of a German prince, to destroy the civil consequences of such marriage-contract, and to give it the same value as that of the ordinary matrimonial union. Duke Anton Ulrich of Saxe-Meiningen, in the year 1711, united himself ad morganaticam to Elizabeth Schurman, the beautiful daughter of a captain in the army, a lady of superior education, and exquisite tenderness of mind. Becoming more and more enamThe above strange document, the genu- ored of his young wife, the duke after awhile ineness of which has been often doubted, but determined to make her his full and real with no show of reason, was published for consort, so as to lift her up to the rank of the first time in 1679, by the Elector Pala- duchess, and enable her and his children to tine, Charles Ludwig, son of the unhappy succeed him on the throne. As a first step "winter-king" of Bohemia, and brother of to this effect, he petitioned the emperor, famous Prince Rupert. Even at this period, Charles VI., to grant the title of Princess of the custom of marrying a morganatic spouse, the Empire to her; and while the appeal over and above the first wife, had not fallen was pending, he made such arrangements as entirely into abeyance; but being in bad re- he thought would secure the succession to pute, the elector thought of propitiating pub- his children. Thereupon a violent storm lic opinion by an appeal to the Fathers of arose in the princely world of Germany, the Protestant Church. His Highness had every family protesting against the contembeen married for several years to the Prin-plated desecration of high-born privileges. cess Charlotte of Hesse, when he fell in love with her lady of honor, Maria von Degenfeld, and resolved to unite himself to her in morganatic fashion. He did so with considerable solemnity, notwithstanding the protest of his wife and her friends; but maintaining to the last that his second union was perfectly legal, according to the ancient laws of Germany in respect to princes. Maria von Degenfeld brought her morganatic husband fourteen children, nearly all boys, who Loudest in their protests were the Princes of Saxe-Gotha, Saxe-Anhalt, and SaxeEisenach, the nearest heirs to Duke Anton Ulrich, in the absence of legitimate offspring; and seeing their advice to his Highness disregarded, they concluded a family pact among themselves, declaring all morganatic marriages ineffectual, even if changed into ordinary alliances, and pledging each other to oppose, if necessary, by arms, the advent of any of the children of Elizabeth Schur man. Against this decidedly illegal pact, place at Rome, in the presence of an Engthe duke appealed to the emperor, reiterat-lish clergyman, April 4, 1793, and, to leave ing at the same time his demand for the no doubt of its legality, was repeated at St. grant of a title to his wife. The emperor George's, Hanover Square, December 5, wavered long in giving his reply. The most 1794. The union, which only became known eminent lawyers of Europe were unanimous some time afterwards, was declared illegal in asserting for Duke Anton Ulrich the full and invalid by the English ecclesiastical power to marry either princess or commoner, court, as being contrary to the Royal Marand to install his consort in all the rights and riage Act of 1772; but the question having privileges of a real wife, as well as to give the been revived in later times, great doubts same rights to the children of such union. The were expressed by the most eminent jurists sovereign princes of the empire, on the other whether the annulment of the union was not side, energetically opposed this declaration the most illegal part of the whole proceedof principle, stating it as the basis of princely ing. The offspring of the duke's marriage law in matrimony that there should be Eben- were two children, Augustus Frederick, born bürtigkeit-equality of birth,-and protest- June 13, 1794, and Augusta Emma, born ing against any infringement of this law as August 11, 1801. The former entered the utterly pernicious to the welfare of the realm. army at an early age, under the name of The emperor, though leaning personally Augustus d'Este, and gradually rose to the towards the cause of Duke Anton Ulrich, rank of colonel. He lived at first a very rewas forced at length to give way to the tired life; but the successive deaths of the pressure exercised upon him by the body of elder sons of George III. opening the perelectors and sovereign princes, and declared spective of the throne of Great Britain to the against the rights of succession of the duke's Duke of Sussex, he put his claim to legitichildren. macy prominently forward. He did so parThe German kaiser having vanished from ticularly in the year 1830, during the season the world, and the empire being dead, this of general political agitation. The claim exdecision, though confirmed by the diet of cited great interest among continental jurists, 1747, is probably at present but a piece of on account of the involved succession to the waste paper. The important question of kingdom of Hanover; and a whole legion of the validity of morganatic marriages, as re-books and pamphlets were ushered into the gards the claim of children to the rank and world at the time, discussing the pretenproperty of the father, has in reality never sions of Colonel d'Este. Two of the most yet been definitely settled. George I. him- eminent German lawyers, Klüber and Zachself, it is certain, was married in morganatic ariä, declared themselves strongly in favor fashion to Fräulein Schulenberg, afterwards of the colonel's claim, and even assisted in Duchess of Kendal; and though the offspring bringing the question before the Frankfort of this union, represented in Lord Chester- diet, where, however, it was silently dropped, field's descendants, has no claim to legiti- in consequence of a hint from Prussia. When macy, the same cannot be said of other royal the Duke of Cumberland ascended the throne marriages of the same kind. Without speak- of Hanover, with no successor but a blind ing of the morganatic marriage of William son, the discussion was again revived, ColoHenry, Duke of Gloucester, with the Count- nel d'Este going so far as to present himself ess-Dowager of Waldegrave, September 6, before the Hanoverian chamber of nobles, in 1766, which is of no particular importance, 1834, with the demand to be admitted as or of that of his brother, the Duke of Cum- member of the royal family, and prospective berland, with Lady Ann Luttrell, on October heir to the crown. Threats of assassination, 2, 1771, which is scarcely more consequen- it is said, forced him to leave Hanover; wheretial, although in virtue of it a certain lady upon he went to Berlin, in 1836, to lay his continues to claim some ten millions sterling case before the King of Prussia, Frederick from the British crown, there remains the William III., himself morganatically marnotable match between the sixth son of ried. The king received him on the footing George III., the Duke of Sussex, and Lady of a prince, but did nothing for him; and Augusta Murray, daughter of the Earl of so the affair gradually dropped, and was forDunmore. The marriage ceremony took gotten. Nevertheless, the Hanoverian lib eral party-never reconciled to the arbitrary | Danner, and the income of several large dorule of the house of Cumberland—are under- mains assigned to her. King Frederick was stood to have secret hopes that some change will take place one day in favor of the descendant of the Duke of Sussex. married twice before his union with the countess, and in both cases his consortsthe first, a Princess of Denmark, the second, a Duchess of Mecklenburg-obtained a separation on account of cruelty. The matrimonial action is said to be now reversed. One of the most curious morganatic marriages of modern times has been that of the late Archduke John of Austria, the famous Lord Protector of Germany during the stormy days of 1848. Archduke John, born January 20, 1782, the sixth son of the Emperor Leopold II. of Austria, distinguished himself early in the anti-Napoleonic wars, during which he organized the insurrectionary movement of the Tyrol and the alpine countries of the Vorarlberg. Becoming thus acquainted with popular life and manners, he never lost his fondness for it; but at the end of the war retired to a small countryhouse near Grätz, there to enjoy the pleasures of rural life. He made frequent hunting excursions, and in one of these had occasion to require the services of the postmaster of Aussee, a little village in the mountains. It was late on a cold January evening that he arrived at the postmaster's humble dwelling, to ask for a carriage to take him a stage onward to his destination, The master, Herr Plochel, was not at home, and all the carriages and horses were in use; nevertheless, the smart daughter of the house volunteered to drive the humble traveller, whom, by his dress, she held to be a pilgrim, in a two-wheeled cart across the hills, that he might not come to harm in walking along the lonely road. So they set out, the son of the emperor and the daughter of the postmaster; he silent and pre-occupied, she merry as a bird, chatting and singing alpine songs all the way long. Anna Plochel was not beautiful, but merely what people call interesting; the archduke thought she was the most interesting creature he had ever set eyes on. He shook hands warmly when set down from the humble cart; and the next day, to Anna Plochel's great astonishment, was again at Aussee. He stayed three days at the little village inn, had long chats with little Clara, and at the end of the time The most notable morganatic marriages of recent years have been those of the late King of Prussia (just alluded to), of the King of Denmark, of Archduke John of Austria, and of several princes of the royal Bavarian family. The marriage of the King of Prussia with the Countess Augusta von Harrach, celebrated November 9, 1824, made considerable noise at the time, on account of the bride being a zealous Roman Catholic, and believed to be a pupil of the Jesuits. The young wife, born August 30, 1800, soon acquired an extraordinary influence over her aged husband, whom she seemed to govern entirely; and there were not wanting sinister rumors that she intended to lead him over to the faith of Rome. The excitement created by this rumor threatened to be dangerous, and to allay it, the countess, in 1826, embraced Protestantism. She was created thereupon Princess of Liegnitz, and took part in all official fêtes and assemblies as the declared consort of the king. Even after His Majesty's death, in 1840, she was treated with the greatest respect by his successor and all the members of the royal family; and even had the honor of being inserted in the Almanach de Gotha, though only in the rear of legitimate princehood, as veuve morganatique. Less honor has fallen to the share of another morganatic consort, the spouse of His Majesty of Denmark. King Frederick VII., now reigning, contracted, on the 7th of August, 1850, a morganatic union with Lola Rasmussen, whilom a milliner's apprentice of Hanover, then a lady out of occupation at Hamburg, and finally as the Gentleman's Magazine of October 1850 quaintly reports it-"well known to the Copenhagen corps of officers." Lola Rasmussen is said to have become acquainted with the king, her husband, on the occasion of a violent conflagration in one of the main streets of Copenhagen, when she took active part in working the pumps. She is not beautiful, but of great energy of mind, and is known to exercise considerable influence in the government of Denmark. asked the postmaster the hand of his daughSoon after the celebration of the marriage, ter. Of course, the suitor was required to she was elevated to the rank of Countess of give his name and profession. "Johann, Archduke of Austria, late field-marshal; a member of the illustrious family of SaxeCoburg, otherwise so high-soaring in matrimonial alliances. Prince Leopold of SaxeCoburg-Gotha, born January 31, 1824, nephew of the king of the Belgians, and brother of the king-regent of Portugal, first cousin of the late Prince-Consort, united himself, in March, 1861, to Fräulein Constance Geiger, a young teacher of music in the town of Vienna. The marriage ceremony took place in public, and with considerable pomp, although with a total absence of court carriages. The witnesses were, Herr Haslinger, music publisher and composer; and Herr Streicher, pianoforte manufacturer, both uncles of the bride. The musical element was as strong on this occasion as the morganatic. The Vienna papers, which gave all the details of the ceremony, state that the bride wore a dress of this morganatic marriage, is that of the sovbrown silk, "quite new." Even later than ereign Prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, which happened on the third of November last. The bride, daughter of a Prussian physician named Schulz, is said to be only nineteen, and very beautiful and accomplished; His Highness is sixty-eight. now out of employment." Herr Plochel, a serious man, did not like the reply, and angrily bade the visitor to leave his house, and never show himself again. In vain did the stranger plead that what he had spoken was the truth, and nothing but the truth; all his arguments had but the effect of making the postmaster more and more angry. So nothing was left for Prince Johann but to go to Grätz to fetch some friends who would vouch for his "respectability." This he did, then got the postmaster's consent, was duly proclaimed in church, and married to Anna Plochel on the 18th February, 1827, exactly three weeks after he had made her acquaintance in the two-wheeled cart. Prince John did not in the least make a mystery of the union, but forthwith sent word to Vienna that he had been morganatically married, and would give himself the pleasure soon of introducing his wife at the Hofburg. The kaiser laughed, the empress got into a fury. The upshot came to be, that Johann's humble spouse was made a Baroness of Brandhof and Countess of Meran, with a large annual pension. When Archduke John was Lord Protector of Germany in 1848, his morganatic wife acted as mistress of the house, in the hall of the Old Emperors at Frankforton-the-Maine. Several sons were the offspring of the marriage, the eldest, now called Count of Meran, born March 11, 1839. The countess is still living, being at present in her fifty-sixth year. Morganatic marriages are certainly on the increase in Germany at the present time; the fact is generally admitted even among high conservative writers, and held to be, on the whole, favorable to the existence of royalty. It has been remarked for many years past, that those illustrious families among whom intermarriage had become most common, were obviously declining in physical and mental strength; and this evil, Two princes of the royal house of Bava- it is thought, will be remedied after awhile ria-Prince Charles, uncle, and Duke Louis, by those alliances now called morganatic. cousin of the present king-are married in Few doubt that they are the stepping-stone morganatic fashion. Prince Charles, the from the present unnatural order of things, only brother of ex-king Ludwig-famous as by which a small number of persons stand poet, artist, and friend of Lola Montez-has aloof from the whole world in which they united himself to a Fräulein Bolley, the live, pretending that they are of different daughter of a schoolmaster. The marriage flesh and blood. That kings and princes took place in the reign of King Ludwig, should address each other in epistolary comwho, with his accustomed liberality, placed munication as Mon frère seems pardonable no obstacles whatever in the way of the enough; but that they should be all real prince and the Fräulein, but was present at brothers, uncles, nephews, and cousins, apthe ceremony, and at the end of it presented pears to be undesirable. Nature, to some the fair bride as a Morgengabe with the title extent, has put a veto upon it, as demonof Baroness of Beyersdorf, and a charming strated in the case of the Hapsburg and park and mansion on the banks of the Lake various other royal houses. Perhaps the of Tegern, in the Bavarian Alps. The other family of German sovereigns-a strict circle prince of Bavaria, living in morganatic of brothers, sisters, and cousins-begin to union, Duke Louis, of the branch of Deux-be aware of this fact; and hence the greater Ponts, is residing with his wife, a tradesman's daughter, in great retirement near the city of Landau, in the Palatinate. Besides the above named, there are some fifteen other German dukes and princes married in morganatic fashion; among them is number of morganatic marriages in modern times, even among the leading princes. Already the growing intelligence of the age has had its effect in this matter, and must make its impress ere long on the barbarous matrimonium ad morganaticam. From The Dublin University Magazine. A CHINESE CASE OF BREACH OF PROMISE LITERALLY TRANSLATED. with other names. Thus the list in question runs :- THE case is entitled a "Refusal of Marriage on the plea of Poverty." It is quoted in the "Chêng-yin-chu-hwa," one of the books written. for the purpose of teaching colloquial Mandarin to the Southern Chi- Mr. Adam Sharp, nese. It is stated to be an authentic ac count of a case which actually occurred; but however that may be, we may safely aver that si non vero, it is at least ben trovato. Such cases are rare in Ningpo in actual life, but are a frequent subject of theatrical representation. The translation is perfectly faithful. It may be as well to give here a short account of the Chinese court of law. When a Mandarin tries a cause, he sits in the Ta-tang-court-room, reception-room, etc., at a table covered with red cloth, on which are placed the documents connected with the case, pencils, ink, black and red, and the chien-tung, now merely one of the insignia of office. The chien-tung is a cylindrical case containing ten chien or slips of bamboo with the Mandarin's title engraved or written thereon. These slips were formerly used as warrants of arrest, but now the warrants are usually written on paper, and in a prescribed form. The clerks and other officials stand round the Mandarin-they are not allowed to sit in his presence. The witnesses when under examination kneel below the step at the entrance of the court-room, which is raised a little above the level of the open space in front. In criminal cases the defendant kneels during the whole trial: in civil cases, at least when they are unimportant, he is generally treated like the witnesses-kneeling when being examined, and retiring when the examination is concluded. When making a request, the petitioner, already of course on his knees, knocks his head on the floor. A list of the witnesses similar to that pres which follows is handed to the Mandarin Miss Juliet Sharp, and Mr. Matchem, As a general rule the original has been closely followed, without attempting a strictly verbal rendering, which would only lead to obscurity. No attempt has been made at "improving on" the original. In some instances, on the contrary, as in the speeches of the Mandarin, towards the end, in which he indulges in a great deal of "chaff" and badinage, sufficient justice has not been done; and as for the good man's puns, no attempt has been made to translate them. But as the Mandarin is not more happy in his witticisms than some of his brethren, on the bench in England, his fame will lose nothing by the omission. |