BRIDE FOR AN ARCHDUKE.

Thames Star, Volume LXV, Issue 18239, 13 July 1931, Page 2

BRIDE FOR AN ARCHDUKE.

DIVORCE PROBLEM. BOTH STILL MARRIED. Archduke Leopold von Hapsburg has announced that his marriage to Mrs Alice Gibson Coburn, a Canadian, will take place in Paris next July, when “technical difficulties” have been cleared up. Neither the archduke nor Mrs Co burn have yet received divorces from their respective spouses. Archduke Leopold is unable, under Austrian law, to obtain a divorce without the sanction of the Pope, although he declares, “I consider myself divorced.” Dr. Bunzel, the lawyer of the Hapsburg family, says: “Even if tin Archduke could get a civil divorce in some part of the world —and I have no news of his having done so —I am doubtful whether-, under Austrian law, he could remarry, because such remarriage is expressly forbidden.” The Archduke came into great prominence in New York nearly two years ago in connection w.th the sale of the diamond necklace, valued at £BO,OOO, belonging to his aged and impoverished kinswoman, the Archduchess Maria Theresa. The necklace was the gift of Napoleon to his second wife, the Empress Marie Louise. The necklace had been sold, under an alleged power of attorney, to a New York jeweller for £12,000, and the Archduke was stated to have received £4OOO as commission. He was subsequently committed to the Tombs Prison, New York, but a settlement was ultimately reached in the case. It is understood that Mrs Coburn, at that time, went bail for the Archduke.