Maxence de Polignac , Time Magazine, 1929 Polignac With Pistol Monday, Jun. 17, 1929 Count Maxence de Polignac, member of one of France's oldest noble families, was, last week, taking a bath in his apartment in Manhattan's Hotel Savoy-Plaza. In his rooms were several bottles of champagne, some cognac. The Count intended giving a dinner. But before he had finished his bath Federal agents entered his apartment, seized the liquor, discovered and seized also a pistol, arrested the bather. The next morning Manhattan's papers exulted: "Count de Polignac and 32 Seized Here as Liquor Ring." First developments: the Count was released on $25,000 bail. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Seymour Lowman said: ''We have been trying to get him for a long time. He has been suspected of participating in a bootleg ring that has brought large quantities of liquor into the country." The Count de Polignac is in charge of foreign agents for the French champagne firm Pommery & Greno of which the Marquis Melchior de Polignac, the Count's first cousin, is president. Often he travels in Canada, in South America, less often in the U. S. Last summer he was in Algiers. Arrested with the Count last week was one Philip Gowen who, according to M. de Polignac "was American agent of my company from 1904 till the Prohibition Law." He alone of the 32 who formed the ''ring" at the time of his arrest did M. de Polignac claim to know. Later developments: the Count de Polignac sailed as he had previously intended on the Paris. His pistol but not his liquor was returned to him. Said he: "I have never sold wine in the United States, nor have I collaborated with anyone doing so. ... I want particularly to emphasize that I am leaving only with the knowledge and acquiescence of the Authorities who have been most courteous and considerate. Moreover I have many loyal friends in the United States and I should not want them to be under any misapprehension." Possibly as M. de Polignac walked into his cabin, No. 203, he glanced at the card on the door of cabin 205. There, written in a steward's slanting scrawl, was the name: M. Clarence Darrow. Count de Polignac generally speaks English with only a trace of a French accent. Nevertheless the Graphic reported his final gangplank words as: "Those who ordered me, Count de Polignac, to ze jail have trespass on my honaire. . . . "But here in America, when I am humiliated, I can do nozzing." "Maybe zey zink zis is ze joke and zey get zemselves, what you call it—pooblicity. To me, zo, it is ze serious mattair. Zey have exploited my name, zose dry agents, to put zemselves on ze front page. ... I zink it is all—what you Americans call it? —ze bunk!"
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