King Alfonso and His Two "Naughty Cousins”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 323, 7 April 1928, Page 22

King Alfonso and His Two " Naughty Cousins”

COUSIN of King Alfonso of Spain has just been released from gaol, in Paris where he has spent a term for eating a meal that he knew he could not pay for.

It is an old trick for which many a hard-up man has been locked up in big cities all over the world. This, however, was the noble Don Fernando de Bourbon y Madan, Duke of Durcal, cousin of his Majesty King Alfonso of Spain, a Grandee of Castile, with the Right to Wear the Hat in the Presence of the King. When Duke Fernando was sentenced he took an appeal. After making their own time about it, the French Court of Appeals decided to ispend his sentence. But as they had taken just three months to consider the matter, and as the Duke had beeir under lock and key all those weeks which were exactly as many as the sentence had prescribed, the judicial clemency was quite as much a joke on him as the bad cheque he gave for his meal to the hotel proprietor who furnished it.

King Alfonso not only declined to pay the bad cheque, but indicated that as far as he was concerned, Fernando could settle the account by washing dishes in the hotel's kitchen. The calamity befel the Duke after a pleasant summer which cost certain trusting individuals of the Riviera, sums estimated at nearly 2,000,000 francs.

The gambling casinos and hotels of Monte Carlo, Nice and Cannes ultimately put the Castilian grandee on a cash basis, which was the same as banishment. But in Paris he found s new money-lender and early in the spring the Duke appeared in great glory at Deauville. He had an expensive limousine and in iiis party were two brilliant Parisian beauties. In Deauville, however, he was a little too well known and therefore he headed the party for the Riviera, which last season, for the first time, became a summer as well as a winter resort. The larger casinos did no* care for the presence of the noble don, but at Juan les Pins they needed business and something that would attract the tourists, who thought it well worth losing a thousand or two to be able to say that they had rubbed elbows with a cousin of the King of Spain.

The Duke was born of a line closely collateral of the reigning house of Spain. He is the grandson of the unfortunate Infanta Marie Christine Isabella, who was sister of Don Francis of Assisi, grandfather of King Alfonso XIII. Seen at the casino with the Countess Piccio, who proved to be one of the most venturesome players of the season, and such celebrities as the

Spanish dancer, Otero, and the society painters, Domergue and Van Dongen, Mme. Voisin, wife of the automobile manufacturer and Count Stanislas de la Rochefoucauld, his Bourbon nose had a substantial background that gave him wide credit. After many vicissitudes, Don Fernando returned to Paris as hard-up as ever. Taking a suite at an hotel there he ate a royal dinner, washed down with vintage champagne. But during the night, the management somehow heard what had been dpne to brother hotel-keepers, and in the morning, instead of a valet, a detective capped at his door, with the bill. Don Fernando promptly mentioned the name of King Alfonso, his cousin. “No good,” said the detective. “We

have talked with the Spanish consulate. Call them yourself if you think they will settle your account,” he added as the King’s cousin put on a lese majeste expression. “Communicate with the Duchess of Durcal,” suggested the Duke. But that was no good, either. Nothing was any good except cash. And so he was sentenced to three months.

Even more outrageous has been the behaviour of King Alfonso’s other

cousin, the former Prince Louis Ferdinand de Bourbon-Orleans. This young scapegrace became so obnoxious that he was finally kicked out of nearly every country of Europe except Portugal and Soviet Russia. The Spanish King was thorough!}' tired of reading, day after day, that this cousin was in trouble again for a. variety of financial misdoings, when one day he saw that Prince Louis had been arrested on the French border, dressed in women’s clothes and in association with a band of drug smugglers. For this and other offences, the French ordered him deported from France, and as he took the train for Portugal he was informed that his royal cousin had stripped him of all his titles. “Alfonso can't do that,” protested the Prince. “My titles are as old as his and they are French as well as Spanish.” But Louis found that he could, and now he is spending his untitled days on a Portuguese farm, tied there by a very short financial tether. While Don Louis had his titles, and in spite of his reputation, the young Bourbon was in much social demand and used to charge his hostesses for gracing their dinners with his presence. A wealthy Italian duchess gave a dinner for him, to which she invited a large number of prominent people, but did not know about tills princely cover charge. When the guest of honour failed to appear on time she began to worry. Soon came a messenger with a note, bewailing the fact that the urgent need of 7..000 francs might make it impossible for* the Prince to attend. The duchess managed to scrape together 3,500 francs and sent them by a messenger. After half an hour the Prince’s inseparable companion appeared alone, saying, simply: “You only sent half.”

The young Bourbon went into the egg business in a way that made him popular for about a week in Paris. Someone called his attention to the fact that eggs were very high. This seemed to be an outrage, and the Prince announced to all the papers that he was going to do something about it. Everyone wished him luck. Interviewing egg men in various parts of France, he ordered several thousand crates shipped to Paris and dumped them on the market at figures that cut egg prices in half. The pleased consumers cheered him in the streets and everyone wondered how he had managed it. The thing was as simple as the egg trick of Columbus. Don Louis was able to sell at half-price because he had not yet paid for the eggs. This cousin was also born with the right to Wear a Hat in the Presence of the King, but probably neither of them had better try to do it—at least, not a high hat.