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Show Claimants To French Throne Still Active NEW YORK, N. Y. -Undaunted by the fact that the crown and scepter of France have been museum muse-um pieces since 1848, an increasing increas-ing number of claimants to the French throne are today voicing their aspirations. They are perhaps spurred by the prediction of Nostradamus that a great king would reign in France in 1953. And the forecasts of that 16th century seer have been borne out uncannily in the past; for instance, in-stance, he said birds of steel, spitting spit-ting fire, would attack Paris and, in 1942, Spitfire squadrons of the RAF plastered the Renault auto works near the French capital which were turning out tanks for the Germans. Although Nostradamus could have meant a great leader, as president or premier, the race for the purple is gathering momentum. The latest claimant is a salesman of agricultural machinery from Casablanca, calling himself Henri VI. He is authentically descended from a 19th century pretender called Naundorf, who said he was Louis XVII, secretly rescued from revolutionary imprisonment. The real Louis' sister, duchess of Angouleme, declared Naundorf an imposterN Backers of the Casablanca Casablan-ca salesman say the duchess was lying and that their man will be vindicated when the French ministry minis-try of foreign affairs opens her will, Oct. 19 next year. Then a former Viennese singer claims succession as queen of France under the Salic law, which never has been abolished officially. She Is duchess of Segovia, wife of Don Jaime, eldest surviving son of the late King Alphonso XIII of Spain, who is busily pushing his own claim to the Spanish throne. And at least one sovereign power the Vatican recognizes him as "his most Christian majesty Jacques Jac-ques II of France and Navarre." |
