The Temperamental Duchess

Dona Luisa Maria Narvaez y Macias, Perez de Guzman el Bueno y Ramirez de Arellano, Marquesa de Cartago, Condesa de Canada Alta, Vizcondesa Aliatar and Duquesa de Valencia, had just spent nine months in the clink. Last week she sat, lithe and beautiful, in the prisoner's dock, her astrakhan coat open wide to reveal the soft drape of a smart beige gown and a length of shapely leg. From time to time as the prosecutor read the indictment, her long, blood-red fingernails fondled a corsage of tea roses at her shoulder as she cast a slow smile at her dapper defender, Major Luis Albarracin. Only flaw in her appearance was the dark line at the roots of her blonde hair. She gets special treatment at Madrid's women's prison, but her privileges do not include having a-hairdresser visit her.

The 33-year-old duchess (married, but" separated from her husband) is a reckless partisan of Spain's royal pretender, Don Juan. Many times during the last few years she had been fined or imprisoned for breaching the peace, resisting the law and distributing anti-government propaganda. This time the Falangists had charged her with treason because she had shouted seditious comments at the funeral of a monarchist friend who had died in a Franco prison.

In a candlelit room at the War Ministry a military court of five officers set themselves to the trial of the turbulent duchess. At first, she answered their questions with composure. "Yes," she purred, "I am a monarchist. Yes, I distributed anti-Franco propaganda. Yes, I would do it again if set free."

"You are a monarchist," stormed the prosecutor, "but your pamphlets might well have been signed by the worst enemies of monarchy--the Communists . . ."

The duchess stormed to her feet. "I forbid you," she cried, throwing back her yellow locks like an outraged lioness, "to compare my activities with those of our country's enemies. Don't you dare!" The president jangled a bronze bell to restore order.

It was true that even the Duchess of Valencia's fellow monarchists, who mostly preferred intrigue to demonstrations, found the duchess a little raucous. "The duchess is too temperamental," said one of the quieter kingmakers. When all sides of her case had been heard, the judges had the Madrid court cleared of all but themselves and the prisoner before passing sentence. Then they gave her a year, of which she has only three months to serve.

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