Exiles' Prayer

Four child-Archdukes--Robert, Felix, Karl and Rudolph--donned small white surplices, swung fuming censers, and chanted a quavering treble litany, while there knelt in prayer before them the child-Archduchesses Charlotte and Elizabeth and the mother of these six children, Zita, onetime Austro-Hungarian Empress and Queen.

This somewhat elaborate and complicated family prayer was offered up at the exiled Empress's modest residence in Lequeitio, a Spanish fishing village (TIME, Jan. 24, 1927). The object of the prayer was, however, not in Lequeitio but at Luxembourg, capital city of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (between Belgium and Germany). He is the Archduke Otto of Hapsburg, 15, eldest son of exiled Empress Zita, and sole legitimate heir to the vacant throne of Hungary. He was spending Christmas and New Year's at the Grand Ducal court of Princess Charlotte and Prince-Consort Felix of Luxembourg. Seemingly a successful prayer is the only force which might soon soften the firm resolve of the Allied Powers not to permit the loyal people of Hungary to substitute a king for their present Regent (Admiral Nicholas Horthy).

Although the family which offered prayer at Lequeitio was thus in far from happy circumstances, the children could look back upon a Christmas which was as happy as kindly King Alfonso XIII of Spain could make it. He, generous, had sent numerous gifts even more costly than those contained in 38 large chests of presents despatched from Hungary by loyal "subjects" of "King Otto."