A Strange story.
Some week or ten days ago a young man, originally from the country, became engaged to marry a lady equal to him in rank and fortune.
She was a Parisian.
He occupies a lucrative place in one of our railway company's offices here.
Her father lives on the family estate, which is situated in one of the mountain gorges near the Francorepanish frontier, and separated almost entirely from the world.
He had passed for a widower about twenty years. The young man paid a visit, to the old family seat, where indeed he was accustomed to spend his summer vacations, to collect the innumerable documents the
French law requires the officer who performs.
The marriage to have in his hands before he stamps the civil contract made before him with its Medean and Peralan character.
He asked his father for his mother a burial certificate.
The father was extremely embarrassed by this appeal; but no bands could be published until the burial certificate had been lodged at the
Mayor's office, where the marriage was to be contracted.
The father at last broke the silence, saying: ‘
"My dear boy, I have for a great many years concealed a secret from you, because its possession would prove a painful burthen to you, because the honor of our house is interested in its maintenance, and your tender years have hitherto rendered you incapable of preserving it. Your mother lives.
She is a lunatic.
Come with me and I'll let you see her."
’
He carried his son, who was trembling with emotion, into an old tower which formed part of the architecture of the chateau, and they went to the top of it. The chamber on the last floor was the lunatic a cell — He opened the door, the son entered, and kneeling at the poor woman's feet, sobbed;‘"Mother ! mother !"’ in a most heart-rending manner.
These touching appeals, which would have moved stone idols almost, made no impression on the poor lunatic.
Her stare continued as vacant and her lips as speechless as ever.
The son, his soul sick at the sad spectacle, there gently upbraided his father for denying him the melancholy solace of sharing the attention he (the father) had bestowed on his wreck for so many years.
The father repeated the excuse he had given of his son's youth and the importance of the secret to the family happiness.
It became necessary to avow this misfortune to the bride's family, and they naturally desired to see for themselves, as the story that the wife was dead and the story that she was crazy, seemed something awkward, which needed explanation.
Several members of the family went down to the distant chateau, and the poor lunatic was introduced.
As soon as she saw herself surrounded by witness, she said in a calm tone:
‘
"I am not mad. My husband becoming the pray of unreasonable jealousy, and I, being helpless and alone in this secluded mansion, to escape his continual scenes of violence, and to avoid the fear I was, continually under of being assassinated by him, (he threatened more than once to kill me) I say, I feigned madness in the hope of enjoying something like quiet.
I preferred languishing in prison all my life to being hourly harassed by these dreadful scenes of jealousy."
’
You may imagine the effect of this declaration.
The persons assembled thought at first this accusation was but an additional evidence of the distracted state of her mind, for madness often borrow reason's mask, and wears it so well as to deceive even the most practical physicians of the mind.
The Faculty was appealed to. Before they could decide, her husband, who had been in a state of agitation ever since his wife charged him with her sequestration, became raving mad. His papers were inspected, and it appeared that he had been crazy — a monomaniac — his purenzy arising from jealousy.
He was carried to a mad-house, and his wife signed the marriage contract of her son.--
Paris Correspondence N. O. Picayune. 
