Baron Lolopretjzyl

Baron Lolopretjzyl is the London representative of Herzoslovakia’s Loyalist Party and an intermediary in the effort to restore its monarchy. His attempt to buy Count Stylptitch’s memoirs from Anthony Cade places him at the junction of a political crisis and a personal commission: the manuscript could disrupt plans to put Prince Michael Obolovitch on the throne, while the Baron’s offer turns its custody into a contest of money, discretion, and maneuver.

Identity and Political Position

The Baron first appears in London as a visitor whose engraved card gives Anthony his full, formidable name. Anthony appreciates why the clerk had paused over it; later, he calls him “Baron Lollipop” for convenience, joking that pronouncing the real name tends to harden the arteries. The nickname makes the Baron an object of Anthony’s dry humor, but it does not diminish the authority he claims in their meeting.

He identifies himself as representing the Loyalist Party of Herzoslovakia in London. The party’s cause is restoration: after the revolution that overthrew the monarchy and established a republic, its supporters want to bring back a king. The Baron’s position therefore gives him a practical role in the movement’s dealings abroad, where the proposed restoration involves both British political support and substantial financial backing.

The Memoirs and the Offer

The Baron knows that Anthony has Count Stylptitch’s memoirs, and he is direct about the manuscript’s importance. The memoirs threaten a restoration effort already under way: the people of Herzoslovakia are prepared to offer the crown to Prince Michael, who has the support and encouragement of the British government. In return for a loan of roughly a million, Michael is prepared to grant concessions to Isaacstein and Co. Publication at that moment, George Lomax warns, could ruin the plan.

Anthony’s own commission gives the Baron a specific price against which to bargain. If Anthony delivered the manuscript to the designated London publishers by October 13, he was to receive £1,000. The Baron demonstrates that he knows of this arrangement and offers £1,500 instead. Anthony refuses. The exchange establishes that the Baron is not merely asking for the memoirs: he is trying to secure them before publication, and is willing to pay more than the promised delivery fee to do so.

A Political Plot Behind the Bargain

The stakes become clearer as the proposed succession is discussed. When Superintendent Battle asks who would inherit after Prince Michael, George Lomax says that Prince Nicholas would probably be next in line. Later, Battle confirms that Prince Nicholas Obolovitch is Michael’s first cousin and the next heir. The restoration plan thus depends on a living succession question, not simply the return of an abstract institution.

The memoir scheme also becomes part of the novel’s broader contest over identity and possession. Anthony eventually tells the Baron that he had travelled under the assumed name James McGrath, but that he was the person in possession of the memoirs when the Baron sought him out. By then the manuscript is no longer in Anthony’s hands. Asked whether the Baron or his principal devised the maneuver that separated him from it, Anthony is told that it was Prince Michael’s own idea and that Michael would allow no one else to carry it out. The Baron’s political work is therefore closely bound to the prince’s personal initiative.

Later Encounters and Narrative Role

The Baron reappears at Chimneys, arriving by taxi with Captain Andrassy. Anthony recognizes him at once and, after Lord Caterham introduces the visitors, takes him aside to explain the assumed name and the memoirs. Their exchange turns the earlier London negotiation into a retrospective revelation: the Baron had been seeking the manuscript on behalf of a cause whose leading claimant had acted for himself.

Anthony’s later conversation with Virginia Revel gives the Baron’s offer a personal consequence. He reflects that Jimmy McGrath has been neatly deprived of the thousand pounds due under the commission; the missing sum is the commission’s practical cost, distinct from the larger political danger the memoirs posed. Through this contrast, the Baron’s role connects the novel’s light comedy of names and bargaining with its more serious questions of royal succession, political secrecy, and the price paid by people caught in a scheme larger than their own arrangements.