Women the World Is Talking About

1 — Djamila Bouhired: the young Algerian fighter, inmate of the French prison in Algiers, whom the military court had sentenced to death, dealing her every kind of torture and abuse to wring from her a word about the hiding place of the leader of the revolution.

Last month the President of the French Republic announced that Djamila was spared execution, in deference to the pressure of world public opinion, exerted through the protests and demonstrations that arose in every Arab and Western country of the world, in condemnation of brutality and humiliation in the age of freedom and light.

The name of Djamila Bouhired has become a symbol of heroism, of honor, and of the Arab woman's struggle in the battle of dignity and liberation.

2 — The Empress Soraya: the former wife of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It is said that she is the woman whose pictures have been taken most often and published on the prominent pages of newspapers and magazines in every part of the world... The hearts of women in particular have taken her side, because she tasted happiness at the side of her husband the Emperor, yet her happiness remained mingled with deep pain and her smile crowned with tears, for nature denied her the blessing of motherhood, and of bearing an heir to the throne of Iran.

At the beginning of this past April the Emperor Mohammad addressed the Iranian people on the occasion of the feast of Nowruz and said: It grieves me not to share with you the joys of the feast, for my soul is sad at my distance from my beloved Soraya. — Soraya now lives in Switzerland with her mother and her brother, after the deed of her divorce from the Shah was signed on the sixth of this past April — an event that shook the world, for all that the world had been expecting it...

The eldest of the granddaughters of King Gustaf VI, King of Sweden. She is 23 years old, and she nearly created a political crisis between Sweden and England, because one evening, in a London night club, she fell in love with a piano player named Robin Douglas-Home, as he sang the one song of his own composing: 'I smell spring in the air...'

Princess Margaretha loved the piano player with a true love, and proclaimed her love openly before the whole world, so that her family summoned her to Stockholm and tried by every means to persuade her that she must turn back from her love. The only person who stood by the enamored princess was her grandfather, King Gustaf, who declared: 'We do not wish to repeat the tragedy of Princess Margaret and Captain Townsend; and Swedish law does not forbid princesses to marry whom they will, so long as they are not candidates for the throne...'

And the young princess is happy today, for her grandfather the King has invited Robin to visit Sweden and become acquainted with the royal family.

The Princess of Monaco, with whom Prince Rainier, Prince of Monaco, fell in love three years ago, carrying her off from Hollywood, where she was a brilliant film star; he chose her from among the women of the world to wear the crown of the principality...

Not a year had passed after Grace Kelly's marriage before she gave birth to a baby girl, the Princess Caroline; and last month the artillery of Monaco fired 21 rounds, and rejoicing spread through all parts of the principality, because the Princess Grace had borne an heir to the throne, the Prince Albert... The decorations still stand, and the delights of celebration fill every corner of the little principality...