Down lor the Count

Two weeks earlier Vichy had been jarred by another kind of sensation. It was provided by one Count Foucou de Gines. Europe's decaying aristocracy has produced some exotic late blooms, and in its gaudiest days Vichy has seen the most flamboyant of them. But Count Foucou was something special. He arrived in his bright new British Aston-Martin sports car with a squeal of tires and a flourish of gravel, flanked by a pretty blonde wife and a secretary. He wanted to buy a chateau, he said, and the dazzled real-estate agent showed him the historic Chateau de Theillat. The count took one look, declared he would take it, and with an aristocratic flourish wrote out two checks on the spot, one for 35 million francs ($100,000) and another for 25 million ($71,000).

The stunned agent hastily called up the chateau's owner in Lyons, who accepted the count's offer instantly, and the count moved in. Nobody noticed that the count had picked Assumption day, when all the banks in France were closed.

The Grand Seigneur. The count did not have much time, but he moved fast. Within hours his car rolled out of the chateau's gates under the admiring eyes of the neighboring peasants, who had heard of the arrival of a real "grand seigneur." In the next two days the count bought a nearby model farm for 10 million francs ($28,500), ten paintings (including a Corot valued at $18,500), $2,800 worth of lingerie for his wife, $25,700 worth of jewelry, $1,100 worth of Havana cigars, ten typewriters, assorted washing machines, television sets and kitchen stoves, and a station wagon to transport his purchases back to the chateau. On his way home, he stopped to reserve a pew for himself and his family in the village church. He paid for everything by check.

Merchants he had neglected in town hurried to the chateau to display their choicest wares. The Count Foucou de Gines (rhymes roughly with jeans) picked over their offerings judiciously, settled on 20 jade statuettes, a few more paintings, some luxury editions of books. By the time he was through, the count had written checks for $71,000 worth of bric-a-brac. The count's secretary, taking advantage of an old French custom, scurried around to each merchant and demanded 10% commission on everything his master had bought. He collected, in cash, some 2,000,000 francs ($5,700). The count busied himself by making a fast deal with the livestock on his newly acquired farm, selling part of it to one buyer for $8,500, the rest to another for $3,400. The count insisted on cash.

Then the count ordered a diamond neck lace worth $48,700 from a Vichy jeweler. The jeweler took the precaution of calling the count's bank. The count has little or no money, said the bank. The jeweler got in touch with the police. The count buzzed swiftly out the chateau gates in the station wagon and vanished.

The Losing Game. Knowing the count's cultivated tastes, detectives concentrated on the swank Riviera resorts.

Last week police learned that three strangers had rented a sumptuous villa on Cap d'Antibes for $850 a month. When the police walked in on them, the count was casually sipping aperitifs with his wife and secretary. The secretary whipped out a gun, but was quickly disarmed. Count Foucou de Gines proved to be one Regis Combier, a 27-year-old sewing-machine salesman and sometime arms smuggler, and the "countess" was his wife. The secretary was a 36-year-old ex-convict named Edouard Rimbaud.

Courtly to the last, "Count" Combier escorted his blonde wife down the flowerbanked path to the police car. "Several times in my life I have tried to be honest, but to tell you the truth, I've always lost money at it," he sighed.

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