Lost Leaders | Page 9

about this
designation. Nevertheless, the facts are that Tin-tun-ling was wedded to
Quzia, and had four children by her. After years of domestic life, on
which he is said to look back but rarely and with reluctance, he got a
position as secretary and shoeblack and tutor in Chinese to a M. Callery,
and left the province of Chin-li for Paris. For three months this devoted
man sent Quzia-Tom-Alacer small sums of money, and after that his
kindness became, as Douglas Jerrold said, unremitting. Quzia heard of
her lord no more till she learned that he had forgotten his marriage vow,
and was, in fact, Another's. As to how Tin-tun-ling contracted a
matrimonial alliance in France, the evidence is a little confusing. It

seems certain that after the death of his first employer, Callery, he was
in destitution; that M. Theophile Gautier, with his well-known kindness
and love of curiosities, took him up, and got him lessons in Chinese,
and it seems equally certain that in February, 1872, he married a certain
Caroline Julie Liegeois. In the act of marriage, Tin-tun-ling described
himself as a baron, which we know that he was not, for in his country
he did not rejoice in buttons and other insignia of Chinese nobility. As
Caroline Julie Ling (nee Liegeois) denounced her lord for bigamy in
1873, and succeeded, as has been seen, in proving that he was husband
of Quzia-Tom-Alacer, it may seem likely that she found out the
spurious honours of the pretended title. But whatever may be thought
of the deceitful conduct of Ling, there is little doubt apparently that
Caroline is really his. He stated in court that by Chinese law a husband
who has not heard of his wife for three years may consider that his
marriage has legally ceased to be binding. Madame Mendes proved
from the volume Ta- Tsilg-Leu-Lee, the penal code of China, that
Ling's law was correct. It also came out in court that Quzia-Tom-Alacer
had large feet. The jury, on hearing this evidence, very naturally
acquitted Tin-tun-ling, whom Madame Mendes embraced, it is said,
with the natural fervour of a preserver of innocence. Whether
Tin-tun-ling is now a bachelor, or whether he is irrevocably bound to
Caroline Julie, is a question that seems to have occurred to no one.
The most mysterious point in this dark business is the question, How
did Tin-tun-ling, who always spoke of his first marriage with terror,
happen to involve himself in the difficulties of a second? Something
more than the common weakness of human nature must have been at
work here. Madame Mendes says, like a traitor to her sex, that Tin
espoused Caroline Julie from feelings of compassion. He yielded,
according to Madame Mendes, "to the entreaties of this woman." The
story of M. Gustave Lafargue confirms this ungallant tale. According to
M. Lafargue, Tin's bride was a governess, and an English governess, or
at least one who taught English. She proposed to marry Tin, who first
resisted, and then hesitated. In a matter of this kind, the man who
hesitates is lost. The English governess flattered Tin's literary as well as
his personal vanity. She proposed to translate the novels which Tin
composes in his native tongue, and which he might expect to prove as

popular in France as some other fictions of his fatherland have done in
times past. So they were married. Tim, though on pleasure bent, had a
frugal mind, and after a wedding-breakfast, which lasted all day, he
went to a theatre to ask for two free passes. When he came back his
bride was gone. He sought her with all the ardour of the bridegroom in
the ballad of "The Mistletoe Bough," and with more success. Madame
Ling was reading a novel at home. Mr. Carlyle has quoted Tobias
Smollett as to the undesirability of giving the historical muse that
latitude which is not uncommon in France, and we prefer to leave the
tale of Ling's where Mr. Carlyle left that of Brynhild's wedding. {37}

SIEUR DE MONTAIGNE.
The French National Library has recently, as it is said, made an
acquisition of great value and interest. The books, and better still the
notes, of Montaigne, the essayist, have been bought up at the not very
exorbitant price of thirty-six thousand francs. The volumes are the
beautiful editions of the sixteenth century--the age of great scholars and
of printers, like the Estiennes, who were at once men of learning and of
taste. It is almost certain that they must be enriched with marginal notes
of Montaigne's, and the marginal notes of a great man add even more to
the value of a book than the scribblings of circulating library readers
detract from its beauty. There is always something characteristic in a
man's treatment of