SPAIN: Duchess Dynamite

As the most audacious opponent of Franco inside Spain, Luisa María Narváez y Macías, fifth Duchess of Valencia, was restless in the quiet of her ancestral palace at Avila. But she had promised, after her third sojourn in Franco’s jails, to withdraw from active politics for a while. So she rode horseback, drove her sleek Cadillac with the ducal crest on it, ran a charity kitchen in a wing of her palace, and wrote her memoirs. There was plenty to write about, including her expulsion, at the age of ten, from a convent for throwing an inkwell at the mother superior, her year’s work in a pottery factory (“to get to know people better”), her melodramatic escape from a Turkish ship during the Spanish civil war, her five years of active struggle against the Franco regime.

“I am twice a grandee of Spain,” the 35-year-old Duchess says, tossing her luxuriant, red-gold (dyed) mane. “It makes absolutely no difference to me what Franco or his men call me. Why should one worry when there is no court in Spain at which a grandee can exercise his right of keeping his hat on in the king’s presence?”

Bad for the Lungs. Luisa María has not yet given up hope that her dream man, Pretender Don Juan, son of the late King Alfonso XIII, will come to the throne. If only, she says, he were surrounded in his Portuguese exile by brave men instead of a “few shrewd but overcautious politicians.” If only she could talk to him—”If I can’t convince him, I’ll go to the United States. I need more space. The air in Franco’s Spain is not good for my lungs.”

A year ago, Luisa María wrote to Pretender Don Juan, urging him to land on the sea coast of northwestern Spain and march on Madrid: “My Lord, Napoleon’s march from Antibes to Paris will look like a Boy Scout parade compared to your triumphant and bloodless march through Spain . . . Not one person will stand in your way. My Lord, your moment has come. Spain is waiting . . .” Even the country’s most ardent male monarchists were appalled. Said one: “Luckily it was a letter and not a plea supported by her presence and personality that reached the king. That woman is dynamite!” Dictator Franco’s police thought so too.

Wasted Dance. Now that she has promised not to do such things any more, restless Luisa María finds herself dissatisfied by the state of her wardrobe. She asked the Franco authorities for a passport, saying she wanted to go to Paris and “buy a few dresses.” She tried to help her cause by making the rounds of Madrid’s gay spots with the pudgy dictator’s pudgy, pleasure-loving brother, Nicolás Franco, who is Ambassador to Portugal. But within a few days of the Duchess’ request for a passport, police were quick to note, a letter from Don Juan reached Francisco Franco asking the dictator to step down for the sake of “our common country.”

No passport was forthcoming. Not even brother Nicolás could do anything. Last week, Luisa María canceled her travel plans and said philosophically: “Never mind. It won’t be long before I’ll be traveling on a diplomatic passport signed by a minister of the king. My only regret is that I wasted time dancing with that fat, perspiring man.”