EVEN MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS ABOUT FRENCH NOBILITY

 

Nobility and Fraud

by

 

Dr. PANGLOSS

 

 

 

It is amusing to browse the local news columns in French newspapers of the early part of the century searching for crimes of passion, scams and fraud committed by delinquents from noble families. There are literally hundreds of them and there is little point in tabulating them.

A look at the occurrences clearly shows that nobiliary qualifications at that time (and today) enjoyed a certain authority over the hoi polloi. A businessman would refuse credit to Mr. Durand, but would grant it without hesitation to the Count or Countess de Carabas. That’s why the particule and title had become working tools for a number of crooks and swindlers. One must admit, however, that among them were some rather fascinating characters.

One of the strangest was certainly the Marques de Alba who operated successfully in Provence at the beginning of the century.

He was remarkable, tall, distinguished, vigorous with a large, authoritarian aquiline nose. He was received at all the chateaux in Southern France and ladies went to extraordinary lengths to ensure his presence. High level magistrates and military officers felt honored to be considered among his friends; a bishop offered him papal decorations, perhaps to enhance the luster of these sacred gewgaws. A member of the local gentry offered him his daughter in marriage. As the ceremony approached, the marques became somewhat concerned about his status vis-à-vis the civil authorities, and decamped; it seems that on a starry night before the wedding , he had inadvertently made his fiancée a marquesa…

When apprehended, the swindler admitted to having perpetrated 2,441 scams! The victims were priests, judges, military types you name them, all the strata of society succumbed. There had even been well covered duels!

The marquis went so far that in the end he was caught. When his victims learned that he was not even a gentleman they were shocked and accused him ferociously. To be duped by a lout was the same as having been duped twice!

This type of felon is by no means extinct.

At the end of the Great War, Landru, the fellow who used incinerate his mistresses in an oven used to style himself Mr. Cuchet de Frémijaire; he was arrested for the first time using this name.

The marquise Rola de Rezicki was no slouch either. Her real neame was Renée Saffroy, born in 1894. In 1933 she had married a poor unfortunate Rola de Rezicki; thus her nobiliary name was not false; from that to the marquisate was but a small step…In 1934 she went into the Dordogne to buy a chateau, in fact she bought several chateaux. She had taken a taxi and managed to pay her chauffeur with payment vouchers which, needless to say, were unredeemable.

Let a common mortal try to do the same thing!

In 1935 Renée Saffroy visited at the chateau de Chamblais not far from d’Arbois. She informed the steward that she has bought the property and that a notary from Dijon would soon be coming to handle the necessary paperwork.

Renovations were started, expensive furniture bought; twelve maids were hired; the local tailor from d’Arbois dressed the staff sumptuously.

Some time later the notary arrived. A lavish party was thrown. The funds being in a Geneva bank it was decided to go there by car to pick them up. When the car stopped at the border…. the marquise suddenly disappeared and was not seen again…except in court!

Her operations totalled more than 12 million francs.

The choice of bogus names and titles is often whimsical.

The name of Bourbon does not seem to constrain usurpers. On the contrary it seems to have some permanent fans. In 1923 a Louis de Bourbon caused a stir in America; he even addressed the U.S. Senate.

In 1927 the press picked up an item which reported that a Prince F. de Bourbon and his aide de camp don (FNU) Zulieta, Marquis de Betulia were arrested.

In 1936 a certain Brown was arrested in Nice as Prince de Bourbon !

County courts have had cases brought before them against a bogus prince of Assyria (1925), of a Kronprinz of Turkestan (1925), of pseudo comte de Bretagne (1926), of a Duc de Tervueren who claimed to be a son of Leopold, King of the Belgians, of Prince de Senzay (aka Guérin), of the Grandee of Spain Marques de Vilo Sobar Vasconcellos (aka Monballin), of the bogus admiral de Roux, of a comte de Bourgogne (Albert) of a Bataillard, Duc de Saint-Bernard (condemned to eight months in jail in 1922). And also the notorious prince de Vitanval (aka Louis Lafarges).

The overthrow of the monarchy in Russia released a quantity of real and bogus nobles on Western Europe. One Deltoff passed himself off as Grand Duke Boris; he was tried and sentenced in 1923; one Michael Gerguson, an American for passing himself off as Grand Duke Michael as well as rubber checks suffered the same fate in 1932. Later, he opened a restaurant in Hollywood called Romanoff’s. The most prankish was prince Soultanoff who reminds us in many ways of the marques de Alba mentioned earlier. His self-possession was phenomenal. Arrested, at a fashionable club, he coldly offered five thousand francs to each inspector who had come to arrest him. He pretended to have enormous credit with the Turkish government and he had found the means to sell it in small parts to an industrial who had, in fact not been born the day before. In 1931 the authorities had the affront to interrupt his ingenious career.

Sometimes these swindlers coldly take on the name of existing families .

Thus in 1929, one Seigle passed himself off as duc Pierre d’Harcourt. He had successfully recommended a friend of his for a job as a bank director and managed to make a handsome profit from each operation.

Blanche Jumeau passed herself off as comtesse Nancy de la Rochefoulcaud; in 1927, Mathilde Teviler while driving in Belgium pretended to be comtesse de Montalembert; Jeanne Bouhy styled herself duchesse de Montmorency: three years in jail.

In 1936 the press covered the trial of the duc de Saint-Simon. His name was La Villatte, but he had taken on the name of the famous annalist . Unfortunately some descendants of the real duke were still alive and found the use of their name in very poor taste. They filed suit. There was nothing boring about this trial, everyone as on the edge of his seat.

The bogus duke was hooked on dazzling uniforms and never hesitated to find himself a seat in the first row of the most official ceremonies.

He was seen lowering the air force flag at the tomb of the unknown soldier under the Arc de Triomphe ! At general Dubail’s funeral he appeared representing prince Charles de Bourbon, a "legitimist" pretender to the French throne. When he appeared in uniform it was as a general.

- And you are only a private, said the president of the court.

The duke replied:

- There’s nothing dishonorable about it, your honor.

As he was accused of taking on a title which was not his own:

-There are so many families which have usurped their titles much more than I have…

And he started to name them. The papers, unfortunately omitted to cite this part of the accused’s defense - so as not to cause a scandal in high society.

A specialist in luxury-car thefts who called himself Bertier de Savigny was arrested in Nice in 1934; needless to say he was in no way related to the Bertiers de Savigny whose pictures were frequently seen on the front pages of magazines at the weighing in at the races at Longchamp. There was also a bogus count Paul de Montaigu who also went by the name of Watrin and was well known in Paris, Brussels and Geneva for ordering expensive meals in restaurants and not paying for them as well as other types of larceny; this individual had the audacity to claim himself related to the senator, comte de Montaigu, and thereby to the dower marquise de Montaigu, née de Wendel. Again, there is no need to point out that he was related to neither of them.

There are few noble or commoner families today which do not have skeletons hidden in their closets in the form of some crime, swindle or other aberration. It is not rare to find names of ancient and honorable pedigree appearing in the legal columns of newspapers.

Prince Bertrand de Faucigny-Lucinge in 1930 had some problems with the law for signing fundless checks, and for possession of drugs, etc. The writing of a fundless check is one of the offenses most often perpetrated by nobles or assimilated nobles. The scrap of paper thrown carelessly on to the desk of his creditor with a haughty gesture of disdain followed by a slow about face and a nonchalant retreat to the door is what one would expect of a gentleman. Unfortunately the game is dangerous as Mr. Theodore de Poorder found out in 1934, the German princess Luigina Pasquero in 1933, Mr. Payrecaux de Lamarque in 1932, Baron Sandrans, all of whom had to face judges for this type of caper.

In 1930 the papers reported the sentencing of Enguerand de Marigny to 8 months in jail; he was allegedly the descendant of the constable who had King Philippe Le Bel hanged on the gibbet of Montfaucon, which the King himself had erected to punish counterfeiters and prevaricators. (The reliability of the pedigree of this noble crook has not been guaranteed.)

Authentic foreign nobles are just as likely to be subject to the rigors of the court.

In 1935 in England it was reported that the Duke of Manchester was sentenced to nine months in jail; Fitzgerald, Duke of Leicester also served a similar term several years earlier; baroness Elizabeth Strabolgi, a septuagenerian was not unfamiliar with damp straw. In Prague, Prince Schwarzenberg was subjected to the same humiliation for fraud.

There was also the case of the activities of the Archduke William of Habsburg-Lorraine, cousin to the pretender to the throne of Austria. He had seduced young Paulette Couyba, lived from her earnings and was finally called to answer some rather humiliating questions posed by the judge.

Marital fraud is a frequent offense amongst the usurpers of names and titles. The marriage brokers are often counts and countesses of something or other. Thus in 1936 a certain Comtesse de Maupin (Weddings, social relations, 19 rue Marbeuf, Paris) her real name was Espinasse - who maintained a file of chaste young ladies but swiftly appropriated engagement rings and dowries was apprehended and made to appear in court.

Finally, this last item is dedicated to readers who have more than a superficial knowledge of French as it loses its piquancy completely when trying to explain it in English. In the late twenties the comte de Perrault was sued for marital fraud; he had told a Miss P… all sorts of stories and promised her all sorts of nice things. Comte de Perrault; don’t you find it rather charming?

 

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