"PRINCE" IN TROUBLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12551, 19 April 1904, Page 3

" PRINCE" IN TROUBLE.

OLD LADY ALLEGED-TO HAVE BEEN

VICTIMISED

Prince Laeorce »b Vitexval, Due dc! Saint-Leon, alias Leon Laforge, has been arrested in Paris at the instance of the relatives of an old < lady from whom he is alleged to have obtained by undue influence money and pictures. The prince was already in trouble in the year 1901. He was arrested; at his flat in the Rue Pigalle, where he had the headquarters of his phantom principality. Tim police inspector found him still asleep in a big bed, having j a gorgeous baldacchino over it. At either side of the sleeping prince was a manuikin, or dummy figure, garbed like the mail-, clad knights of old. Around the walls were the portraits of his ancestors, or rather, as the inspector put it, those of the ancestors of the old lady whose friends objected to her connection with the prince. Laforge has also to answer charges relative to the "Most Noble Order of Saint-Leon," which he founded. He received money from persons for decorations, which he forgot tc send. The prince piotested vehemently against his arrest, but calmed down after a time, dressed himself, put on his while gloves, and went to the police depot with the inspector. The secretary and majordomo of the prince, one Clement Gairaud, was likewise arrrested. To the juge d instruction Laforge declared that he had been made a prince by the late Pope Leo XIII., but he could not produce the Papal decree to that effect, as he had been unable to pay the money required for the document. Prisoner further stated that lie was, only amenable to an ecclesiastical court for any charges brought against him, but the magistrate remarked that a civil tribunal was ■ good enough, then formally charged the prince with swindling. The humbl: secretary was included in the indictment as an accomplice of his master.