Village Juliet

When Jacob NicoL left his house one brisk September morning in 1946, the world looked bright. He was living comfortably in Roxton Pond, Que., had a profitable trucking business and a pretty dark-haired bride of two days. When he returned that night, his world had suddenly collapsed. His wife, Lucile, had left him to go back to her mother. Nicol knew what that meant. A Baptist, he had courted Lucile, a Roman Catholic, for seven years before eloping with her to Vermont. His widowed mother-in-law, Mme. Oviline Charrois Labrecque, made it clear that she was determined to break up the marriage.

Change of Mind. Nervously Nicol hastened over to the College St. Eugene at Granby, where Mme. Labrecque worked as a cook. He asked to see Lucile, but the Abbe Lambert Collette turned him away, informing him that his marriage (by a Justice of the Peace) was not recognized by the Catholic Church. Later he was told that Lucile would ask for an annulment. But when Nicol saw her a week or so later in the Convent of the Grey Nuns at Chambly, she seemed to have changed her mind, asked him to arrange a reconciliation with her mother and the priest. When Mme. Labrecque still refused to recognize the marriage, Nicol sued her and Abbe Collette for $2,000. A few days later Lucile hanged herself from a pipe in the College St. Eugene.

When Nicol asked to bury his wife he was flatly refused; he learned from strangers when the funeral service was to be held, and went to it unasked. After that he pushed his trucking business to the side and amended his damage suit, asking an additional $11,000 damages. His case was tried early last year.

Last week, Justice Franc,ois Caron, a Catholic, handed down his decision: $400 damages and the costs of litigation for Jacob Nicol. The court held that the marriage was legal beyond doubt, that the girl, being 23 years old, had every right to enter into a marriage contract. A letter from the Abbe to Lucile was introduced in evidence. It said, in part, "You must remain free . . . the marriage at Newport means nothing . . . Nothing obliges you to marry him . . . May le bon Dieu help you in your decision." In the court's opinion, this "constituted not advice, but an order." The facts, Judge Caron. found, clearly established that both mother and priest had refused to let Jacob Nicol see his wife, and "on these grounds alone" he was entitled to damages.

Of the Abbe Collette's part in the tragedy, the court commented: "The right of a minister ... is not absolute . . . liberty of conscience, as all liberties, finds limits in the rights of one where the rights of the others begin."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.