LIECHTENSTEIN: Good Prince John

In Vienna last week friends and relatives of Prince John the Good of Liechtenstein pressed into a flowered parlor, smiled, shook his hand, offered felicitations. The old white-haired man nodded pleasantly, murmured thanks. Cataracts, he explained, were impairing the vision of both his eyes and demanded the attention of Viennese specialists, otherwise he would surely be at home with his “household.”‘ By “household” Prince Johann Maria Franz Placide, Prince of Liechtenstein, Duke of Tropau and of Jägerndorf meant the 11,500 inhabitants of his tiny (65 sq. mi.) independent principality, smallest in population in Europe. These inhabitants, the Prince well knew, were celebrating the completion of the seventieth year of his reign. The Prince has reigned six years longer than Queen Victoria, two years longer than Emperor Franz Josef, and only two years less than the 72-year regnant King Louis XIV of France.