Word: andorrans
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...until two years ago did Andorra's 24-man Council of the Valleys get around to rescinding its 1914 declaration of war on Germany. Andorra's few state documents are kept in a giant oak closet at the government house, the Casa de la Vail. Since every Andorran is deemed honest, the government's money is apt to be lying about anywhere...
Despite this disdain for modern bureaucratic technique, Andorra's government rocked along smoothly enough until one day in December 1958, when somebody left $168,000-two-thirds of the entire Andorran treasury-lying in a cupboard drawer in the Casa de la Vail. Next day the cupboard was bare. Also missing was Ramon Riberaygua, 36, scion of a leading family and secretary of the Council of the Valleys, who on frequent visits to Spain had developed an un-Andorran taste for luxury. He kept a mistress in Barcelona and enjoyed paying big tips at the Hotel Ritz to have...
Andorra's sovereignty supposedly dates back to 777, when Charlemagne drove southward against the Saracens, then padded the Christian world with little buffer states. For centuries some 5,000 Andorran mountaineers dwelt in peace, snowbound more than half the year, in their high valley-about two-thirds the size of New York City...
...tiny State's Council chamber last week and broke a 1,000-year old precedent. Since Charlemagne Andorra has been an autonomous State, but a State in which only the heads of land-owning families could vote. No man could vote whose father was still living, and Andorran shepherds and smugglers (leading industries) are almost indestructible. Faced by the menacing crowd of vote-seekers last week, the Andorran Councillors-who govern with "advice" from the Spanish Bishop of Urgel and the Government of France-suddenly discovered that there was no written law denying sons a vote. Universal male suffrage...
Physically potent, the Andorran Government (composed exclusively of hardy mountaineers) led young men of Andorra's best and hardiest families against the soft Spanish strikers, easily broke the strike, kicked its leaders across Andorra's frontier into Spain...