"The Marriage of the Duke of Hamilton" (Galignani's Messenger, December 1873)

Overview

In early December 1873 the Paris English-language daily Galignani's Messenger carried reports on the approaching wedding of the 12th Duke of Hamilton and Lady Mary Montagu, eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Manchester. The wedding took place at Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire, on Wednesday 10 December 1873; the first notice quoted in the diary, copied by Galignani "d'après le Glasgow Herald" (Marie's headings), describes the programme of festivities at Kimbolton Castle and on the Hamilton estates in Lanarkshire, Arran and Kinneil: a ball at the Town Hall at Hamilton for some 600 guests on the Tuesday night, a tenants' banquet in the Riding School of Hamilton Palace, cannon remounted at Chatelherault for a salute, fireworks and bonfires, wedding presents from the yeomanry, the tenantry (a diamond bracelet subscribed for over £2,000) and the household (an inkstand worth close on £200).

This is not a single article but a run of notices under headings such as "The Marriage of the Duke of Hamilton", which Marie read, copied and pasted into her notebooks; they survive in the diary as clipping paragraphs.

Marie and these notices

Marie, in love from afar with the Duke of Hamilton, met the news of his engagement and wedding in these columns, and her diary of the weeks around 10 December 1873 is built around them.

• 28 November 1873 (013.0122): she rereads in her study-room "cent fois" the sentence announcing that the marriage "is definitively fixed and will be solemnised ... on the 10th Dec."; her hands tremble.
• 8 December 1873 (013.0262): "Je ne puis [...] jamais au monde [...] dire ce que j'ai senti en lisant le 'Galignani', journal fatal, source de toutes mes tribulations malheureuses. L'article est intitulé - The marriage of the duke of Hamilton." She pastes four clippings (013.0263-0266: the programme of rejoicings, Kimbolton Castle, the presents of the yeomanry and household, the tenantry's diamond bracelet) and comments that the phrase "lady Mary" alone "me suffoque" (013.0267).
• 9 December 1873 (013.0291): she reads "The marriage of the duke of Hamilton" calmly to her cousin Dina, who asks whether pigs were slaughtered and pigeons killed for the occasion.
• 13-15 December 1873 (014.0047-0068, 014.0104-0109): further clippings, from Galignani's Messenger or an unnamed English paper ("probablement Galignani"): the Kimbolton report of the Tuesday ball in a tent in the castle grounds, the ceremony, the couple's departure for Easton Park and the Suffolk estate, and the wedding presents (for instance Prince Louis Esterházy's gold bracelet and the Duke's necklace of Oriental pearls for his bride).
• 15 December 1873 (014.0103): "Les deux mois sont passés depuis cette terrible journée. Je puis aller au théâtre. Encore 'The Duke of Hamilton's Marriage'."

Notes and doubts

• Marie speaks of "l'article" and "le Galignani" in the singular; the paragraph markers in the edition label the clippings "Galignani's Messenger (d'après le Glasgow Herald)", "Galignani's Messenger" or "journal anglais (probablement Galignani's Messenger)". The exact issue dates of Galignani's Messenger have not been identified, so no link to an original page is given: the project has not located the December 1873 issues. Gallica (BnF) holds a digital reproduction of the Messenger according to the ISSN register; the individual 1873 issue pages were not found in this pass.
• The text of the clippings is already in the diary, with Marie's transcription (013.0263-0266, 014.0047-0052, 014.0058-0068, 014.0104-0109). This entry is the work-level record and should not be tagged on the ordinary mentions of "Galignani" the newspaper.
• The bride's name and the date of the marriage come from the clipping texts in the notebook, not from an outside source.