Word: foucou
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Dates: during 1956-1956
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...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...
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...
...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...
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