ROUMANIA: Carol Out

Queen Marie of Roumania, famed matchmaker for Balkan dynasties, long ago devised a sentimental formula to account gracefully for her inability to manage her eldest son, the Crown Prince Carpi:

“Youth and love will have their way in spite of Kings and Queens.”

By this she meant that before the World War Carol did all he could to thwart her schemes to marry him off to the Grand Duchess Olga of Russia; and that in 1918 he added insult to injury by marrying one Mlle. Zyzis Lambrino, beautiful daughter of a Roumanian officer, at Odessa.In 1919 Queen Marie secured the annulment of the morganatic Lambrino marriage, and tried to pack Carol off on a trip around the world, “to efface the memory of Zyzis.” Carol thwarted her temporarily by shooting himself in the leg, and thus delayed his world tour of forgetfulness until 1920. When he returned, the indomitable Marie (backed by King Ferdinand) saw to it that he married the not positively homely Princess Helen of Greece. Zyzis is the mother of three children, whom Carol admits to be his. The Princess Helen has borne Prince Michel, now a backward and rather sickly child of four.

Crown Prince Carol vented his dissatisfaction toward his parents by agitating against their favorite, Premier Bratiano. He also mixed himself up in a scandal involving the purchase of some allegedly defective airplanes by the Roumanian Government. Every now and then he threatened suicide, although behaving admirably toward Princess Helen, who is said to be gradually going blind. A few weeks ago he failed to return to Bucharest after attending the funeral of the Queen Mother of England. This was not even mentioned in despatches because his frequent “disappearances” with Zyzis have become commonplace.

Last week King Ferdinand of Roumania read to the Crown Council a letter in the autograph of Crown Prince Carol which had been postmarked at Venice: “I have irrevocably decided to renounce all my rights as heir to the Roumanian throne and as a member of the royal family. I bind myself during six years not to return to Roumania, and also after the lapse of this period never to tread Roumanian soil again except with the permission of the King and the Roumanian Parliament.”

On the face of it, the letter seemed only another of Carol’s innumerable declarations that he has long wanted to abandon royal state and live as a commoner with Zyzis. In 1919 he wrote a similar epistle, and he is thought to have written many before and since. What startled the world was that this time King Ferdinand, instead of hushing up the offer of abdication, rushed it through the Crown Council and ordered the Roumanian Parliament to convene for the purpose of declaring Carol’s baby son, Michel, the Crown Prince.

Discreet observers refrained from attributing a motive to King Ferdinand. They noted well a sentence which dropped from his lips on Jan.1, 1926. Gazing down upon his little grandchild, the King remarked, “So this is my New Year. …” It was obvious to the dullest wit that the baby Prince Michel is not likely to obstruct the policies of Ferdinand of Hphen-zollern-Sigmaringen and Marie of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Ironists recalled that for many years Ferdinand and Marie were estranged by a tertium quid, Helene Vacarescu.

Correspondents all over Europe made themselves extremely ridiculous by pretending that they knew where Carol was last week. A symposium of their despatches would read about as follows:

“Prince Carol of Roumania is stopping at a hotel in Venice, Milan and Lucerne, with a mysterious lady who is really Zyzis and Princess Helen, unless she is a Roumanian-Italian-Polish-Jewess of high rank whom he met while attending Queen Alexandra’s funeral. He is concealing his presence in London rather cleverly, and had tea in secret with his sister, the Princess Ileana, who is at school near Ascot. He and his dissolute brother, Prince Nicholas, celebrated his renunciation by staging a wild party at Mitchell’s, atop Montmartre, Paris (see CELEBRITIES DINE). Later he and the mysterious lady left Vienna to seek a quiet exile in Sweden; and he is expected to arrive shortly at Bucharest, in order to retract his rash step, which he now bitterly regrets.”