KING ZOC’S BRIDE

Opotiki News, Volume I, Issue 45, 17 June 1938, Page 4

KING ZOC’S BRIDE

LOVE STORY TOLD yMET AT COURT BALL TIRANA Feb. 7. Countess Geraldine Apponyi, 22-year-okl Hungarian, has revealed how she first met and fell in love with King Zog, 43-year-old; ruler of Albania. ’ King Zog’s \ bride-to-be, who until only a few weeks was earning £l. a week selling picture postcards in the Budapest National Museum, spoke as Princess Geraldine, a rank to which she has just been raised by the king. She also spoke as a beautiful; young woman, obviously very much in love. She. said “l first met King Zog at a Court

Ball in Tirana, last New Year's Eve. I had been invited by one of the king’s sisters. We fell -in Jove them and;

Bf| ' vaf: “But tpe story really goe4 hack further than that. Two., ago when I' was staying at castle : Apponyi, on. the' Danube, I made out a catalogue of 'our library. Spring Wedding. “I knew the history of my country’s struggle for freedom .against the Turks, but it was then that I read the story of Albania’s fight for independency against the same foe.

“So I came to know King Zog through the books.l read with quickly beating heart, the story of his heroism and bravery which ended in his country’s freedom. I admired him even before I met! him. ’• :

“We shall he married at the end of April or the beginning of May. On the question of religion, I know the liberal views of King Zog, and on this point, as on nearly , every other question of importance, King Zog and I are in complete agreement.

“King Zog assures religous freedom to every one, aiul 1, of course, shall be entirely at liberty to practise my religion.”

Princess Geraldine, • daughter of Count Louis Apponyi, Court marshal to the Emperor Francis Joseph, is a Roman Catholic; King Zog, like many >

of his subjects, is a. Mohammedan.