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Tin-Tun-Ling, a Chinaman

Dans son édition du 12 juin 1875, le Times de Londres rendait compte du procès intenté à Tin-Tun-Ling, le chinois de Théophile Gautier, pour bigamie.

« Latest intelligence. France. (By Telegraph.) (From our own correspondant.) », The Times, saturday, June 12, 1875, n° 28210, p. 7, col. 1-2.

Tin-Tun-Ling, a Chinaman, was tried at the Assizes to-day on a charge of marrying Caroline Liegeois, described as an English governess, while the wife ho had left behind at Macao was still alive. Born in 1831, and baptised as a Christian in 1849, the accused was married at Macao, a native Christian priest performing or witnessing the ceremony, no register, however, being at that time kept. Another native priest became godfather to three of the four children of this marriage. In 1861 he accepted an engagement as secretary and interpreter to a M. Callery, of Paris, at 150f. a month, but on his arrival found he had to wash up dishes and black boots. On the death of his master, in 1862, he was ignorant of French and without resources, but a friend of Theophile Gauthier, happening to meet him, took him to dinner to his house, and Gauthier gave him a home to teach his daughters Chinese. In 1870, he was appointed assistant to M. D. Hervey St. Denis, Professor of Chinese at the College de France, but his hasty temper led him to tell his superior in the middle of a lecture that he know nothing of the language, whereupon he was dismissed. During the siege he frequented the ramparts, creating amusement by his fund of drollery. For the first three months of his stay in Paris he sent money to his wife, but all communication between them then ceased. In 1872 Mdlle. Liegeois, according to the prisoner’s version, became so enamoured of him that he could not resist her solicitations. A civil marriage was accordingly arranged. The French law, by the attestations and consents it requires, interposes so many obstacles to wedlock, that numbers of people in humble life cohabit without attempting to satisfy its exigencies ; but the prisoner had a friend named Comte, who was rebuked by the presiding Judge for the excessive complaisance which led him to swear to allegations respecting Tin’s parentage and antecedents. He even styled him a Baron, which he could have had no means of proving. The marriage ceremony was performed on the 6th of February, 1872, but the bride left her husband the same night. They never cohabited, but she paid him several visits, the issue being that she preferred a charge of bigamy against him at the French Foreign Office. While the accusation was being investigated, however, she sailed for New York, and has not since been heard of. No question was has not since been heard of. No question was raised as to the fact of the second marriage, and there was strong circumstantial evidence in proof of the first, for the two Chinese priests before mentioned had made depositions. The first wife’s brother had also made a deposition that he regarded the prisoner as his brother-in-law, and Madame Callery stated that in his engagement with her husband he stipulated for the payment of a sum of money to his wife before he started for Paris. An interpreter was employed by the Court in the examination of the accused, though he understands French tolerably well, and declared this step unnecessary. The long, intricate, and argumentative questions of a French Judge must, however, be somewhat puzzling to a foreigner even with a fair mastery of the language, and there was some difficulty in ascertaining his line of defence. It appeared in the end that, having heard nothing of his wife for three years, he considered himself by the law of China released from the connexion. His counsel, M. Bonnier Ortolan, dwelt on this plea, urging also that there was no proof of the validity of the first marriage, and that the bride was only a secondary wife, or concubine. He argued also that, even assuming her to have been a real wife, there might have been a divorce, and he created some amusement by citing the reasons justifying this measure — namely, sterility, immodesty, disobedience to the husband’s parents, loquacity or slander, theft, a jealous temper, or an incurable malady. Adultery, he said, necessitated a divorce ; and the wife was now alleged to have fear children, whereas she had only two when the prisoner left her. He also read — though this was not relevant to the case — a provision whereby a woman deserting her husband was liable to 100 lashes and to be sold to any purchaser. He maintained likewise that Macao, though occupied by the Portuguese, was Chinese territory, having a native Governor, and that the Chinese law did not recognize marriages celebrated by priests, parents alone having the right of concluding marriages for their children, and there being no religious ceremony. The presiding Judge having summed up, the jury, after retiring for five minutes, acquitted the prisoner.

« Latest intelligence. France. (By Telegraph.) (From our own correspondant.) », The Times, saturday, June 12, 1875, n° 28210, p. 7, col. 1-2.

OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Olivier Jacquot (1 octobre 2023). Tin-Tun-Ling, a Chinaman. Carnet de recherche. Consulté le 17 mai 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/m3zv


Olivier Jacquot

Chargé de collections : manuscrits des fonds américains, Service des manuscrits ORientaux (SOR), département des Manuscrits (MSS), Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)

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