DUKE OF CONNAUGHT

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 October 1931, Page 10

DUKE OF CONNAUGHT

AN ITALIAN’S LAWSUIT.

MONTREAL, September 1

Tho Duke of Connaught and Mr. R. E. Bennett, the Prime Minister of Canada. are among those summoned to appear in a case which will shortly come before the courts here. The suit has been brought by Count Luigine Falchi, a former flying officer in the Italian air force, who has instituted legal proceedings with the object. of recovering from the estate of his wife (formerly Miss Marguerite Stephens of Montreal) the sum of about £74,000; or, alternatively, under the Italian marriage contract law, one-third of the profits accruing from the estate during the life-time of the count.

The principal defendant in the case is Mr. George Washington Stephens, brother of the late countess, and sole executor of her will. Mr. Stephens was formerly administrator of the Saar Valley under the Treaty of Versailles, and his sister was first married to a British subject, Mr. Hamilton Gault, whom she divorced under French law.

During the war, Mrs. Gault financed and sent to France out of her own funds the world famous “Princess Patricia’s Regiment,” of which her husband was colonel. She married Count Falchi in Paris in October, 1919, and died at Montreal in 1930.

She bequeathed nothing to her husband, the main portion of her estate, which amounted to considerably over £200,000, going to her brother, with special bequests to several other people, including the Duke of Connaught, and Mr. R. B. Bennett.

Although the Duke is summoned to appear at the court, personal attendance will doubtless not be necessary.