Franckenstein's return
Sir: Many thanks to Mr Norman Davies for his excellent letter (27 November) in which he quite rightly points out my erroneous claim that our family title was bestowed by the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1670.
Having done further research, I agree with him that the imperial barony (Reichs- freiherrstand) was indeed conferred by Leopold I — the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. (My father's official title when he was Austrian Ambassador to the Court of St James from 1920-38 was Frei- herr George von and zu Franckenstein.) To quote from my father's memoirs: 'In 1806 the Emperor Francis, who had been Emperor of Austria for two years, renounced his claim to the Crown of the Holy Roman Empire. Up till that time the Franckenstein family was "Reichsunmittel- bar", which means that it owed direct alle- giance to the Emperor and the Empire, and was not subordinate to any local sovereign.' As a wise old European friend of mine remarked recently, The British have a way of taking only their own titles seriously!' It was obviously sentiments of this sort that compelled William Cash to put my family's title in quotation marks.
However, the words of a cynical old Cali- fornian always come back to me, when 1 arrived in Hollywood as a struggling young actor in 1972: 'So you're Baron von Franck-
LETTERS
enstein - well, that and 50 cents will get you a cup of coffee anywhere in America!'
Clement von Franekenstein
1213 S. Stearns Drive.
Los Angeles, CA90035, USA
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