The Court of Assizes at Paris has lately been occupied with the case of a
Chinese gentleman, whose personal charms and literary powers make him
worthy to be the compatriot of Ah-Sin, that astute Celestial. Tin-tun-
ling is the name--we wish we could say, with Thackeray's F. B., "the
highly respectable name"--of the Chinese who has just been acquitted on a
charge of bigamy. In China, it is said that the more distinguished a man
is the shorter is his title, and the name of a very victorious general is
a mere click or gasp. On this principle, the trisyllabic Tin-tun-ling
must have been without much honour in his own country. In Paris,
however, he has learned Parisian aplomb, and when confronted with his
judges and his accusers, his air, we learn, "was very calm." "His smile
it was pensive and bland," like the Heathen Chinee's, and his calm
confidence was justified by events. It remains to tell the short, though
not very simple, tale of Tin-tun-ling. Mr. Ling was born in 1831, in the
province of Chan-li. At the interesting age of eighteen, an age at which
the intellect awakens and old prejudices lose their grasp, he ceased to
burn gilt paper on the tombs of his ancestors; he ceased to revere their
august spirits; he gave up the use of the planchette, rejected the
teachings of Confucius, and, in short, became a convert to Christianity.
This might be considered either as a gratifying testimony to the
persuasive powers of Catholic missionaries, or as an example of the wiles
of Jesuitism, if we did not know the inner history of Mr. Ling's soul,
the abysmal depths of his personality. He has not, like many other
modern converts, written a little book, such as "How I ceased to chinchin
Joss; or, from Confucius to Christianity," but he has told Madame Judith
Mendes all about it. Madame Mendes has made a name in literature, and
English readers may have wondered how the daughter of the poet Theophile
Gautier came to acquire the knowledge of Chinese which she has shown in
her translations from that language. It now appears that she was the
pupil of Tin-tun-ling, who, in a moment of expansion, confided to her
that he adopted the Catholic faith that he might eat a morsel of bread.
He was starving, it seems; he had eaten nothing for eight days, when he
threw himself on the charity of the missionaries, and received baptism.
Since Winckelmann turned renegade, and became a Roman Catholic merely
that the expenses of his tour to Rome and his maintenance there might be
paid, there have surely been few more mercenary converts. Tin-tun-ling
was not satisfied with being christened into the Church, he was also
married in Catholic rites, and here his misfortunes fairly began, and he
entered on the path which has led him into difficulty and discredit.
The French, as a nation, are not remarkable for their accuracy in the use
of foreign proper names, and we have a difficulty in believing that the
name of Mr. Ling's first wife was really Quzia-Tom-Alacer. There is a
touch of M. Hugo's famous Tom Jim Jack, the British tar, 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}