Will Renounce Marriage For Sake Of Spain

Chronicle (Levin), 21 December 1949, Page 5

Will Renounce Marriage For Sake Of Spain

Received Tuesday, 7.20 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 20. The Daily Mail's Paris correspondent says Don Jaime's bride of four months — the vvoman who. helped him to speak and hear — said she would give him up to make it easier for him to return as Regent of Si>ain. The blonde 30-year-old Ducliess who, before she married Don Jaime (Bpanish ' King Alfonso's eldest surviving son) was the Austrian opera singer Oharlo.tte Tiedeinann. She said: "I adore him. The marriage is perfect but I would not hesitate to take this terrible decision if it would help niy husband to reach an understanding with General Franco on his way to the throne." ' Their spokesman, Guido Or'lando, said the reason for the Duchess 's announceinent, was that she was not of Royal blood and fears the marriage niight hinder negotiations going on now with Franco. The 6ft. 2in. Don Jaime, who is 41', gave up claims to the Spanish throne years ago because he was almost deaf and dumb but after marriage the Duchess ci ixed and coached him to speak. The Duchess told French reporters: "I haven't yet had the eourage to t.ell him J am ^willing to renounce the marriage but 1 feel sure he will understand. It will come as a shock to him but he knows his duty. He will rise to the oecasion. " She told a friend: " It seems a very drastic thing to do but I have made up my mind. Nothing must stand in the way of Spain beeoming a happy country again. " The tangled skein .of succession in Spain has been complicated by the abdications of the late King Alfonso, . by divorces, by estraligements and niost of all by the hereditary curse of the Bourbon family, haemophilia — a deadly bleeding disease which 'affects the male line. .