Complicated Marriages

In the higher French classes the custom is tliat the civil or legal marrjage should be celebrated before mayor or day or two beiore the b custozn whose origin is the desire bo show thatthc r the religious ceremony alone valid from a Christian point of view. The young bride retorna Jo her family on leaving ,he town hall, and only starts for her wedding journey after the marriage has taken place in a church, in a temple - as Protestant places of worship are called - or in a synagogue. This ereates a rather equivocal situation, says the New York Commercial Advertiser, for if, whieh is rare, but has sometimes happened, some incident should occur between the two ceremonies to delay the second one, the husband and wife would be legally married without being so in fact. I knew of such a case. On the night of the civil marriage the husband received a telegraphic dispatch calling him to his mother's bedside, who was dying, and who lived in a f oreign land and whose illness had prevented her being present at the wedding. He lef t, received her last blessing, and i-endercd her the last sad rites, and was afterward kept at the place by business affairs relating to her death and whieh were of the greatest importance toliim. This lasted for a month. llis wife, who was a devout Catholic, would not have consented for anything in the world to go and join him until the ir union had been blessed by a priest. During this interval the husband mot a cousin he had formerly loved. She supceeded in reconquering him, and hc had not the courage to consummate the marriagc legally contracted in Paris. He off e red to be divorced, but the young wife's religious scruples prevented her from acceptiug this proposition, and slie asked for and obtained without difficulty a legal separation on the grounds of desertion. llowever, tlie husband found a roundabout way, more or loss irregular, to marry his cousin in Holland, where he lives now, br.1 i:i EVance he v.-ould be considerad a bigamist and his legal wife is Jlme. X.. who has nevcr been his wife. The affair :t,-il a great scandal at the time Ln Parision societj'.