Worthy Companion

Love came over the rice fields of Annam up the River of Perfumes, to the forbidden city of Hue, over the walls of the Red City and into the white dragon-eaved Palace. There, last week, among his jazz records, his ping-pong tables, his radio and his detective stories, it found and smote that gloomy youth, Bao Dai, hereditary Emperor of Annam, Son of Heaven, Absolute Master and Father and Mother of his People--and French puppet. Too bored to look sullen. Bao Dai spent his life from 9 to 19 in Europe, where he had let himself be crammed with a good French education and good French politics. When he was 19 he was shipped back to Annam and Annam's real boss. French Governor General Pierre Pasquier, ushered him into the sacred Red City (TIME. Oct. 3, 1932). Bao Dai understood that he was to stay there, remote and mysterious to his people. His ancestors set the example; the French gave the orders.

No woman is allowed to look on Annam's Emperor sitting under the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor in the Throne Room. But the palace has other rooms for the parties Bao Dai dearly loves. To one such party lately went a pretty 18-year-old girl from French Cochin-China to the south. She was a commoner, daughter of a well-born Chinese ex-Governor and her name was Marie Nguyen Hu Hao. She, too, had been edu-cated in Europe, in a convent near Paris. She liked detective stories and jazz and was ready to try her hand at ping-pong.

Last week Bao Dai gave vent to his Imperial feelings. "The future Queen, reared like us in France, combines in her person the graces of the West and the charms of the East. We who have had occasion to meet her believe that she is worthy to be our companion and our equal. We are certain by her conduct and example that she fully merits the title of First Woman of the Empire."

One of little Marie Nguyen Hu Hao's views proved troublesome. She is a Catholic, wants to remain one. Bao Dai is a

Buddhist who needs Buddhist sons for heirs to his throne. Last week Marie Nguyen Hu Hao appealed to Archbishop Dreyer, Apostolic Delegate to Indo-China at Hanoi. Would His Grace ask the Pope for a special dispensation? She offered the Church the female issue of her mixed marriage. Would that be enough? She hoped, in all piety and humility, for a speedy reply, for the Emperor had fixed his wedding for March 20.

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