ALFONSO SUED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 140, 15 June 1932, Page 9

ALFONSO SUED.

IS DON LOUIS EX-KING'S SON?

A LEGITIMACY ACTION. TO BE FOUGHT IN FRENCH COURTS. (By a Special Correspondent.) NEW YORK, May 10. Don Alfonso Louis Jerome de Bourbon, who represents himself as "the rightful and legitimate son of Don Alfonso XII., late King of Spain, and as such entitled to all the rights and honours pertaining thereto," took the first steps to-day towards an action he contemplates bringing against the deposed King Alfonso of Spain.

His American attorneys forwarded to legal representatives in Paris a petition to bo permitted to bring the suit in the Supreme Court of France. Copies of the petitions were sent to President Zamora of Spain, Senor, Juan Francisco de Cercenas, Spanish Ambassador to the United States, and Mr. Stimson, the Secretary of State.

"The purple robes'have been stripped from him," said Don Louis, referring to the dethroned Alfonso. "He is no longer king. He is but a man. As a man he can be brought into Court. Now I can obtain that which I have sought so long—justice." "Years of Persecution." The petition requests that the Court summon the former king before it in person. It also asks that the Court award Don Louis a rightful share of the estate of the man he says - was his father, together with such interest as the Court may determine; and that it seize all property of the exiled monarch for the protection of the plaintiff. Further, the petitioner requests the Court to decide upon a "punishment for the damajre done by his brother, Don Alfonso de Bourbon through many years of malicious persecution."

With the petition to the Spanish Government went a request not to dispose of the property which belonged to tho former king, and which was sewed, until a decision is reached by the French Courts. On that decision, Don .Louis

sets forth, a plea will be entered in the Spanish Courts to restore him the property "unlawfully held" by the man he claims as his brother.

Don Louis maintains these proceedings will establish his claims—claims denied in many quarters, including the Spanish Embassy at Washington.

A registered letter was mailed w.ith the petition to Paris. That letter was addressed to Don Alfonso de Bourbon, Fontainebleau. In the letter Don Louis reproached the man he calls "brother" for alleged personal wrongs, and for the manner in which Alfonso XIII. ruled his country. The letter declares that the crown taken from Alfonso rightfully belonged to Don Louis. ! "Driven From My Native Land." "All that I want is to meet in y brother face to face in Court," said Don Louis, as he laid aside a photographiccopy of a denial by the Spanish Embassy that King Alfonso XII. had ever contracted a morganatic marriage. "I will make him swallow this denial. I will confront him with copies of documents that will prove everything I say, and 1 will leave it to him to say whether they shall be made public. My evidence will all be by photographic copies. Th° original documents are in a safe place. There are many of them, including letters by my father to my mother, diaries containing secrets of the Court of Spain. State correspondence all placed in tlio keeping of my-late mother by my father, the King of Spain. I have ample reason for keeping those document* in a. place of security. For years, wherever I went my baggage was searched, as if I would carry such things with me. It got so that whenever I would go into a stransro country I would hand over the keys to save the searchers trouble. That was my brother's doing.

"When I refer to him as a man without a country, I think of myself. For years, because of him, I was a man without a country, a wanderer on the face of the earth.' Not until lie had abdicated did I dare visit my native country. Jn me was no desire to face a firing squad."—(N.A.N.A.)