Foreign News: Carol-ings

Rumania has two capitals. One is Bucharest. The other is Paris. The Royal Palace in Bucharest is situated on the principal square, and Calea Victoriei, in the heart of the city. In it dwells the boy-king Michael (Mihai), titular sovereign of Rumania. The Royal Palace in Paris is situated on the Boulevard Bineau, Neuilla, a suburb of the French metropolis, in it dwells “His Majesty King Carol II,” better known as the onetime Crown Prince of Rumania, or as the “playboy” Prince.

Parisian boulevardiers were set by the ears last week by a rumor, subsequently confirmed, that Mme. Magda Lupescu, titian-haired mistress of the onetime Crown Prince, had been dethroned as the queen of his heart. Long did bewhiskered Frenchmen tarry over their Amer Picon discussing the significance of the latest hitch in the “affaires” of the Rumanian romancer. It supplied material for one of those diurnal and refulgent arguments in which Parisian, café-loungers are wont to join in effervescing garrulity and in which the necessity for introductions is forgotten in the excitement of debate.

The Crown Prince had found another mistress. Mais, non. Somebody knew from a friend who was a close friend of an intimate of Prince Carol that he broke with Mme. Lupescu because he was contemplating returning to Rumania to seize the royal power from his six-year-old son, Michael. But somebody else, who had known a man who had kept as his mistress the daughter of a onetime Rumanian court official, knew positively that it was because of Magda’s articles in the New York American about her love affair with Carol. This worthy also knew that the Prince was angry and had refused to believe her when she said that she was not the authoress of the articles. But a young mystic, who once had had aspirations to join the diplomatic corps, was able to tell the assemblage, with his eighth vermuth, that he had been informed that the break was occasioned by considerations of a strictly personal nature, which he, unfortunately, was not able to divulge. And so on, far into the night.

Inquiries at the Rumanian legation were met with a denial of the break, because, it was pointed out, Mme. Lupescu had been seen shopping with Prince Carol only the day previously. Critics, however, placed little belief in the denial, which they said was inspired by a desire to offset a rumor that might advantage him politically. But, later on, it became an established fact that red-headed Magda had been ousted from the princely favor and she was presumed to have gone to Vienna, although she could not be found there.

Coincidently with the Magda-Carol estrangement came the news that a “delegation” had arrived from Bucharest to discuss the Rumanian political situation with the onetime Crown Prince.

But Carol, returning to Paris from an allegedly mysterious visit to the country, was visibly irked by the blatherings of idle gossipers. Said he, peeved, to a newspaperman: “I have already said before, and I repeat, that for me in my quality as a public man the sentimental question [his affair with Mme. Lupescu] does not exist. This sentimental question is a screen that interested persons have set before the real reasons, which are of a political and family order, and which brought about my renunciation of the throne.

“Please make it clear that I am not a pretender, for a pretender is active in intrigues and schemes— acts I have steadily refrained from since my departure from Rumania. That does not mean, however, that I have disinterested myself in the constitutional question, as I said in Rumania. I repeat what I have already said—if my country calls me I will respond at once.”

In Rumania itself, which is veiled, like all tyranically governed countries, by a censorship, it was said that the Carolists have no chance of getting their protege seated on the throne and that the movement has no following, both of which statements were considered unreliable. The real truth of the matter seems to lie in the attitude of the army, on whether or not it would support Carol if he should appear on Rumanian territory. Many think it would, for he is still popular among the officers.

Meantime, the peasant party gathered to hold a monster meeting at Alba Julia, in which Carolism was expected to be the leading subject of debate.