Hollywood Titles—And Others

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 442, 25 August 1928, Page 26

Hollywood Titles —And Others

French Nobility Not so Popular T o-day, but M ovie Stars Still Like Foreign Princes

F

R.ENCH titles have fallen to their lowest ebb in the international marriage mart. Power and prestige have slowly

been dwindling away from the possessors of noble names, and there are many members of the genuine French aristocracy (according to the Paris correspondent of a New York daily paper), who feel that there is no longer any force in the mere ownership of a grand name and could see all the titles swept away without attempting to retain‘these ghosts of greatness.

Present interest in the subject arises from the gossip in the highest social circles as to whether Marguerite Watson, of Washington, who married the Duke de Nemours, is a real duchess or not. There was a frenzied effort on the part of the French royalist family to prevent the recent marriage. If the agitation dies down, she will not be opposed in the titles of the Duchess de Nemours and the Princess of Orleans. When her husband’s father dies she will succeed to the title of the Duchess de Vendome and will be the wife of the Pretender to the Throne of France.

Through these titles and family relationships she is a niece by marriage of King Albert of Belgium and the cousin of the Prince of Wales. She is the only American girl to marry into the branch of the great Bourbon family that descended through the bar sinister from King Henry of Navarre. Comment on the marriage indicates that leaders of the French nobility themselves do not set great store by titles. Referring to the report that the wife of the Duke is not a duchess, Count Fleury, an authority on titles, said that the people setting that rumour afloat seem not to have heard of the French Revolution. “The Third Republic never abolished titles,” he declared, “but the only interest it takes in them is to levy a tax when the nobles want their rank verified.”

“The American girl who married the Duke de Nemours is as much a duchess as he is a duke,” said another high member of the French nobility. “Nobody can change that, since the De Nemours title is well established. It is curious that while so many spurious titles are going around unchallenged, a reql one should be questioned when one happens upon it.” Some time ago the Vicomte de Royer, after making a study of the French nobility, declared that the modern Gallic titles were largely fictitious. He was ready to say that there was no real nobility in France any longer. According to his studies, there were no fewer than 45,000 families with noble titles for their names, and he declared that possibly not more than 450 of these could substantiate their pretensions by indubitable proof of their blue-blooded descent. Not many years ago there was a dazzling lure in a noble name, and American girls flocked to buy these antique titles. The steady shift of prestige and power in society from famous families to men who have made themselves famous by achievement or the accumulation of money is constantly diminishing the importance of the titles. There is still some merchandising going on in the exchange of titles for money, but it exists only among the newest of the nouveau riche or among girls who have acquired sudden wealth or acclaim without the seasoning of experience. In the days when Anna Gould married the Count Boni de Castellane and let him spend 9,000,000 dollars of American money, and when Consuelo Vanderbilt took the Duke of Marlborough as a marvellous catch, the American aristocracy of money and position has had an inferiority complex in relation to the nobility of Europe. The fact that many foreign titles are now suspect leads to much ribaldry regarding them. When Gloria Swanson, the motion picture star, married the Marquis Henri de la Falaise de la Coudraye in her third matrimonial

venture, there was much discussion of his rank.

However, the Marquis was modest enough to sign himself plain “mister” on his marriage certificate, and in his case there does not seem to be any suggestion of fortune-hunting. He is a “regular fellow,” got a job on his own in New York when he went to the States with Miss Swanson, and in rebuking some one who asked him about his early occupations said he could see no insult in being referred to as a “workingman.” Mae Murray and Pola Negri, two passion flowers of the silver sheet who married princely brothers, were harried soon after their separate nuptials when it was reported that the Princes Mdivani did not come honourably by their titles. American motion-picture princesses earn regal incomes and drink the heady wine of sudden affluence and world-wide prominence, and it could easily be said that, unbalanced by their magic fame, they are drawn by the lure of old-established names to alliances which secure them social position and prestige.

However, the Princes Mdivani made reply that they did not pretend to royal honours, but that their name was ennobled in 1752 by Czar Irakly 11. of Georgia, then a separate monarchy. And there may be a suit against the man who denied them the princely name to decide whether Mae Murray and Pola Negri are plain Mrs. Mdivani or can still high-hat old friends in Hollywood with the introduction “Madame, la Princesse.” The French nobility is unlike the British and has little of its authority and standing. All the sons of a French nobleman are of noble rank, while, strictly speaking, only the eldest son of a British peer becomes one, and then only when he succeeds to his father’s peerage. Younger sons bear only courtesy titles, which have no legal authority whatever. British nobility is constantly replenished by adding to its ranks commoners who have made good in art, science, banking business or politics, while the French nobility possesses no political power whatever.