FRANCE: A Sale

His Serene Highness Prince Helie de Sagan, Due de Talleyrand-Perigord, husband of the former Anna Gould* of Manhattan, decided to sell his estate at Sagan in Silesia near the border of Brandenburg and about 100 miles southeast of Berlin. The estate, which was advertised in European papers, comprises Sagan, capital of the “principality,” which has a population of 15,000 people, an immense outlying estate upon which 50,000 people live, many castles, a park and other properties. The whole estate is worth considerably more than a million dollars. Prince Helie, who inhabits an aesthetic pink marble house on the Boulevard du Bois de Boulogne in Paris said when questioned about the sale: “See the treasurer of my household. … I occupy myself with nothing concerning the sale. My Berlin agents receive offers in my name. The French and German Governments doubtless will have to give their assent to the sale, which will be a pure formality. I shall have to intervene only when the sale is concluded.”

The Quai d’Orsay, French Foreign Office, said: “It is a long time since the feudal laws under which such principalities were administered were abolished. We are no more concerned with this sale than with any real estate transaction on the boulevards.”

The American Princess emphatically stated that the title of “Prince” is not to be sold with the property. Charles Maurice Pierre Jason Howard, her son by Prince Helie, will one day become Prince de Sagan, no matter what happens to the property now for sale.

*In 1895, Anna, daughter of George Jay Gould, married Catholic Count Paul Marie Ernest Boniface de Castallane. In 1906 she divorced him. Two years later Prince Helie fell victim to her charm and they lived happily ever after—until 1914. In this momentous year the High Court of the Roman Curia reconsidered the annulment of her marriage to Count Castallane. It transpired that the Pope was displeased, the Vatican distressed and Catholics in general disturbed about her divorce—then the Great War overshadowed all.