Fight for Millions.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 260, 7 November 1904, Page 4

Fight for Millions.

BLACKSMITH'S CLAIM TO PRINCELY ESTATES. PARIS, Sept. 22. Yesterday M. Leydet, examining magistrate, commenced his preliminary inquiry into the strange Casa Riera case, which is destined to attract considerable attention. The magistrate's task is the result of a charge of forgery brought by M. Pierre Riera against the Spanish Marquis of Casa Riera. M. Riera is a blacksmith, and his allegation is that the Marqjuis, who owns a mansion in the Rue de Herri, Paris, and sovcral other princely residences elsewhere, is an unlawful usurper of the title, and consequently has no right to the fortnne of six or seven million ppunut; which he now enjoys. The ambitious blacksmith has already lost an action brought in the Paris courts to prove his right to the title and estates, but he is still determined to show that the present Marquis is an impostor. M. Pierre Riura also accuses Mgr. Gouverd, Bishop in jjjartiilius of Uilioia, of making away with certain documents confided to his keeping. Several persons have been arrested in Spain on suspicion of having "cooked" certain official documents which are vital to the dispute. As for the Marquis, he protests that the whole affair is an impudent plot, and vows that when the time comes he will put the blacksmith and. all the other claimants to shamo amfl humiliation.