Zizi Sues

A black-bearded man wearing a cocked hat and displaying an immense brass shield called last week at the Hotel Chambord in the Champs-Elysees, Paris. His impressive uniform proclaimed him a huissier, a process-server. With dignity he delivered to one of the hotel clerks a paper serving notice upon the abdicated Crown Prince Carol of Roumania that his first (morganatic) wife, Zizi Lambrino, had arrived at Paris from Bucharest and started suit to recover 10 million fanes from him, avowedly on the grounds that she is still his wife. Zizi. It. was recalled that the Roumanian Government has sufficiently indicated its conception of the validity of her marriage (1918) to Carol, by declaring it annulled (1919) and granting her a modest pension. Mme. Lambrino's lawyer, Maitre Albert Salmon, has however advanced the theory that this annulment was "illegal" and known to be such by all concerned, including the Roumanian Government. Said Mme. Lambrino tearfully last week: "Only for dynastic reasons did I accept the second marriage contracted by my husband with Princess Helen of Greece" (1921).

Ergo, it was reasoned by Lawyer Salmon that, since Carol's abdication sweeps away these "dynastic reasons," he ought to resume marital relations with Zizi or pay her 10 million francs--despite the fact that he is officially the husband of Princess Helen of Greece, and is actually residing at Paris in close proximity to one Magda Lupescu, who recently accompanied him from Milan. (TIME, March 8.)

Upon such grounds as these impends a suit before whose complications the most intrepid jurists were struck dumb.

Letter. After perusing the many documents willingly displayed by the still personable Mme. Lambrino, correspondents picked out the following letter as that most likely (if genuine) to aid in substantiating her case:

"My dear Zizi: Being obliged to leave and again command my regiment at the front, I do not know what may happen. I wish you to keep this letter as recognition on my part that I am the father of the child which you will have and that I have never ceased, in spite of the annulment of our marriage, to consider myself as your husband. I kiss you.

(Signed) "CAROL OF ROUMANIA."

The letter is dated at Bucharest, Aug. 1, 1919. On Jan. 8, 1920, the child in question, "Mircea," was born. At Paris last week Mircea was patted on the head by many a pressman, kissed by many a presswoman.

Carol. The abdicated Prince maintained a complete silence. His friends pointed out that it is remarkable, to say the least, that Mme. Lambrino has thus suddenly appeared in Paris, with a Roumanian passport, although it has been widely reported that she was being detained semi-forcibly in Roumania by the Roumanian Government, lest she leave Roumania and rouse all the old scandals once more.