King at Work
Work done last week by Rumania's new King Carol II:
HE enlisted potent Jewish sympathy by announcing: "I love the Rumanian Jews in the U. S. (210,000) as though they were my own subjects."
"We are highly elated!" cried Chairman Solomon Sufrin of the Rumanian Jewish Committee of America at Manhattan. "I foresee the end of all persecution of the Jew in Rumania!"
Jubilant Jews, knowing well that most orthodox Rumanians hate and despise their race, assumed that His Majesty's attitude of affection results from his residence in France for the past four years with Mme Magda Lupescu, Rumanian Jewess.
HE instructed the British mint, makers of Rumanian money, to stop work on the "King Mihai" series of which several million coins have been struck. The new Rumanian law of annulment (TIME, June 16) states that Carol's son Mihai was never King. As soon as possible busy Britains will start stamping "King Carol II" coins, printing "King Carol" postage stamps.
HE began a "housecleaning" of his royal family, his court, his diplomatic service, his army:
1) The private telephone connecting the palace of Prince Babu Stirbey with the apartments of Dowager Queen Marie (where Carol, before he left Rumania four-and-a-half years ago, once surprised the Prince and boxed his ears) was ripped out. Search of the Stirbey palace last week revealed an archive of state secrets and codes sufficient to hang at least two persons for High Treason. But King Carol II wisely allowed his mother's one-time "court favorite" to leave Rumania for "voluntary exile."
2) Six generals hostile to King Carol were placed on the retired list, two who assisted his return (Generals Averescu and Presan) were gazetted field marshals. The King's brother Prince Nicholas, who telegraphed the signal for his return was created "Chief Inspector of the Army and Navy." Said Carol of Nicholas last week: "He is more than a brother! ... He hourly does me splendid service." Nicholas told reporters that during his brother's exile they used an affectionate telegraphic code in which "Mary" stood for Carol. Without translating it Nicholas quoted one code message: "TELL TITKUS KISS FROM SOPHIE."
3) Under Prime Minister Juliu Maniu a new cabinet was assembled last week, chiefly significant because it contains neither Field Marshal Averescu, Field Marshal Peter Presan, Professor Nicolae Iorga (once tutor to the King), or any other arch-Carolist. In effect the new Maniu cabinet is the same as his old one of fortnight ago, and his peasant party remains supreme in Rumanian politics. Impotent Vintila Bratianu, liberal leader and onetime Prime Minister, bitterest foe of Carol, was credited last week with shouting (at his Carolist nephew George Bratianu): "I'll kill Carol myself--with anything--with a kitchen knife!"
Marie's Return. A Queen like Marie can do no wrong in Rumania. What if a charred scandal had blazed up for a moment with the ripping out of her telephone? The realistic attitude of typical Rumanians is merely this: No one disputes the legitimacy of King Carol, Prince Nicholas or their sisters, the former Queen Elisabeth of Greece and the present Queen Marie of Jugoslavia. If, after giving King Ferdinand these four children, Her Majesty then gave Prince Babu Stirbey her last and youngest child. Princess Ileana, is that anyone's business but her own? In Rumania it is not. In Rumania the sanctity of the orthodox patriarch of the National Church, His Holiness Miron Cristea, is not held to be impaired by his national reputation as a onetime roue.
Cheerfully and even joyously, then, Dowager Queen Marie returned from the Passion Play at Oberammergau last week to Bucharest. As her train drew in, but before it stopped, Her Majesty leaped from the step of her salon car as lightly as a girl, rushed at King Carol who tried to take and kiss her hand, swept him into her arms, hugged and kissed him thrice. With a gay skip Crown Prince (previously King) Mihai rushed at "Granny''! Prince Nicholas kissed his mother's hand. So did all the other great dignitaries present except one. He, an imposingly robed and snowy-haired old man, accepted Her Majesty's homage and imparted his apostolic benedictions. Then, attended by a retinue of orthodox priests, the Most Holy Miron Cristea slowly and majestically departed.
Queen Helen. With her big St. Bernard dog at her side, Helen of Greece and Rumania quietly resisted last week terrific pressure brought to force her in:o reconciliation with Carol.
This singularly lovely woman seldom does or says the expected thing. A potent U. S. tycoon (in Rumania about a loan) once complimented H. R. H. upon her beautiful topaze eyes. "Thank you," she said, "I am glad you like them. They are very little use to me."* Courteous but disconcerting, this reply is wholly typical. In vain last week Nicholas, Carol, Marie and His Holiness--the whole Rumanian pack--argued with her and pleaded. She would agree to nothing.
Willy-nilly, Helen was next made Queen of Rumania by King Carol who signed a decree announcing that she has been Queen ever since his father's death (TIME Aug. 1, 1927). She thus became only his Queen, not his wife, for in 1928 she obtained an absolute decree of divorce in which Carol is declared to have "violated the sanctity of his royal marriage" and to have "deserted" Helen and Mihai. Rumania thus had a King and Queen who were unmarried--probably a record!
Next the Most Holy Miron Cristea proceeded to convene the Orthodox Rumanian Synod. These venerable priests voted that, in the eyes of the Orthodox Church, the King and Queen are man and wife. Parliament paused, on the brink of passing a Royal Marriage Act which would make them man and wife in law.
Topaze. Caught up in this grotesque Rumanian masquerade of Justice, Helen was swept along. Yet she won a victory of sorts last week. After talking to her and meeting the glance of her strange, pale topaze eyes, Queen Marie rushed off to Balcic on the Black Sea and King Carol withdrew to Sinaia in the mountains. It was said that Helen demanded as the price of formal reconciliation with Carol a promise that as Queen she will be spared the presence in Bucharest of Dowager Queen Marie. "Exile" for her meddlesome mother-in-law she did not ask, merely long and frequent "absences." At the time of her divorce, when Carol was living with his Jewess, Helen said: "I hope that now he will begin a better life and will find the happiness that he apparently failed to find with me. I can forgive, but never forget the wrongs he did to me and my child."
*Since then her failing sight has been greatly improved and strengthened by an Italian specialist (TIME, Feb. 7, 1927).
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