consul, François Duclos, stepped in to persuade the couple that the marriage was not legal, but found himself confronted by the Beizadea, and unable to answer the Countess' observation that she was no longer a French national, nor a Catholic. In June 1845, French Prime Minister François Guizot personally weighed in, informing Gabrielle of the risks she was taking upon herself. The Beizadea replied for her, telling Duclos: "It astonishes me so very much, Sir, that Mr Guizot should take such an interest in my love life. He would be well advised to handle his own ministry, which he has been handling very poorly." Presented with another scenario, namely that his brother's militia could storm into Perieni and arrest him, Grigore announced that he and "my sharecroppers" would fight to their deaths. He continued to defy his father by taking hold of the estate revenues of Perieni and Neamț Monastery. The Prince retaliated by ordering his military not to allow Grigore into Iași, and Moldavian boyars to stay out of Perieni. Memoirist Gheorghe Sion reports that eventually, in September 1845, 200 Uhlans, forming Moldavia's full cavalry force, rode into Perieni. The Beizadea barricaded himself inside the princely compound, where he expected to withstand the siege alongside a group of trusted Arnauts. Lacking provisions and deserted by his servants, he rode out of Perieni "on his wildest steed", armed with a carbine, a sword, and four pistols. The Uhlans never chased after him, focusing instead on disarming the Arnauts; they also arrested Countess Dash and escorted her to Mamornița, forcing her to cross into Austrian Galicia, never to return. Duclos provides a different narrative, according to which the Beizadea had simply grown tired of the Countess, and had her sign a "convention" ending the marriage; in both his and G. Sion's version, the conflict ends with Grigore asking for the Prince's forgiveness. Yet another account is that the Beizadea had been made aware that the Countess was having an affair with her cousin, the Count Tanneberg, and that he personally escorted both of them to Switzerland in November 1845. A notice originally published in Kölnische Zeitung that December noted that Sturdza and Dash had "dissolved their marriage by mutual agreement", and that he was set to marry one of Ivan Paskevich's daughters. In 1846, Dash and her cousin were living in Como at the Beizadeas expense. The latter was still flaunting