FRENCH PRETENDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22285, 11 June 1934, Page 8

FRENCH PRETENDER

HOPES OF THRONE RENEWED ACTIVITIES. Tlie Duke of Guise, descendant of 'Louis XIII, and pretender to the French Throne, appears as a growing figure in the republic’s political picture. ■Two days after the rioting in the Place de la Concorde, where young Royalists joined in the fight shouting “Vive le Roi!! ” the duke, issued a manifesto inviting “ Frenchmen of all parties to adopt the monarchic principle.” He followed that by calling hia supporters to confer with himself and his son, the Comte de Paris.

“The hour may strike sooner than,we imagined,” he told them. “We must abandon all personal quarrels and give the utmost energy. We must, messieurs* It is a sacred duty!” Since then Royalist propaganda ha* redoubled. Royalist committees (and there is one for every province in France) are working to convert doctors, lawyers, professors, Judges, and prefects of police. The Action Francaise, the Royalist newspaper, thunders daily against the Republican regime. Pictures *of the duke, nig athletic son (who is “ the Dauphin to the Royalists), and the little grandson born last July are circulated. “ The republic cannot go on honeycombed with scandals like the Stavisby affair,” said one Royalist. “The next logical sten might be a dictator. But we have no Mussolini, no Hitler. Why not, then, a return to the monarchy? The duke, who is 59. makes his home at Anjou Manor, near Brussels. He became pretender on the death qf his cousin, *i,f, Duke of Orleans, on March 28. 1926