Zizi sues Prince Carol

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March 4, 1928

Prince Carol of Roumania was is in his hotel room in Paris yesterday when he received a visit from a bailiff representing his first wife, Zizi Lambrino, the New York Times reports. The former Crown Prince has been summoned to pay 10,000,000 francs as "compensation for grief caused by the annulment of their marriage and for support of their son."

In 1918, Crown Prince Carol married Zizi Lambrino, the daughter of Roumanian officers. In 1919, after the marriage had been annulled, Zizi became pregnant and gave birth to Carol's son, Mircea. The marriage was deemed to be morganatic and was annulled on the orders of Carol's father, King Ferdinand. Carol, as the heir apparent to the throne, was required to marry a woman of equal rank.

He married his second cousin, Princess Helen of Greece and Denmark in March 1921. Seven months after the marriage, she gave birth to a son, Michael. However, Carol's marriage, which was arranged by his mother, has not been a success. Carol has renounced his succession rights and has not denied that he is in love with another Roumanian woman, Elena Lupuscu, "a third charmer," who accompanied him from Milan to Paris. Apart from an "occasional appearance at the races," Carol has rarely left the hotel.

Zizi Lambrino, who lives in Neuilly with her son, has hired a French lawyer to "defend her claims." She offers as evidence a "love letter" written by Carol in Bucharest on August 7, 1919, when he offered her a "passionate goodbye" as he left to serve with his regiment.
He concluded the letter with: "I want this letter to be recognition on my part of my fatherhood of your son and an avowal that despite the annulment of our marriage I have never ceased to consider myself your husband. I embrace you. Carol."

Zizi has based her claim against Carol "on the effect of their mutual situation of his denunciation of royal rank and privilege." Carol, she insists, is now a private citizen, and the reasons for the annulment no longer exist. Zizi, through her lawyer, also suggested that "the whole business of annulment would be technical."

"It was only from patriotic and dynastic motives that Mme de Hohenzollern consented not only to solitude but the acceptance of a second marriage contracted by her husband to assure an heir to the throne."

The lawyer also noted that an agreement was made whereby Zizi was to receive 110,000 francs a year and "a capital sum when Mircea came of age." There seems to some doubt "as to whether these engagements have been kept." Zizi Lambrino appears to have the means of "an ordinary sheriff's officer summoned the Prince to come and make a home for her and their son."