The Glitter and the Gold

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by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan


  Our chef and staff must have been highly taxed by the almost daily luncheon parties it required to entertain our numerous acquaintances who ranged from Cannes to Men ton. There were, also, certain people among whom were the Préfet, the Prince of Monaco and admirals of visiting fleets that it was more or less a duty to entertain.

  Our house guests provided another problem. In my invitations I invariably stated the date of departure as well as of arrival, since we had a limited number of rooms and visitors had to come and go in an ordered succession. But sometimes a departing guest would be seized by some nameless disease which prevented his leaving. Strong measures were required with such delinquents, who had no thought for the convenience of others. Arrivals from England could not be turned out because of the desire of others to outstay their welcome.

  There were still others who rendered one uncomfortably aware of one's lack of hospitality. There was Margot Asquith for instance. Shortly after Lord Oxford's death, she telegraphed: "Will you have me and a charming secretary for a stay greatly in need of a rest." A few days later she arrived. We had put off other guests, thinking that after so recent a loss she would prefer seclusion. With her first words we realized our error. "Darling, are you alone? Don't put off guests on my account; I love seeing people!"

  It was Margot's habit to send notes scribbled in pencil which were brought to me on my breakfast tray. The next morning, the first read, "Darling, I have nothing to wear. I must order a little black dress." The following day we had a luncheon party of her friends. Margot came down in the little black dress, but to my dismay she had added a red scarf. "Darling—I put on this little red scarf because the dress looked so dreary." "But Margot," I said, "French people are very conventional; you cannot wear a red scarf so soon." Very reluctantly she removed the scarf and went out into the garden, returning with a bunch of red anemones pinned to her shoulder. "They can't be silly enough to object to flowers!" she said, but I saw by their expressions that they were. Later she complained, "French people are so unsympathetic—they never even mentioned Henry's death to me." On yet another occasion we invited a few English friends to dine. Margot asked Jacques to turn on some dance music, and just as our guests arrived she accomplished a high kick over my husband's head. All prepared as they were with expressions of condolence they speechlessly shook hands with her and I wondered whether another sweeping indictment on their lack of sympathy would be forthcoming. To a personality so original and intolerant, conventions as such meant nothing. With admirable courage she fought the sharpness of her sorrow, delighting us with the spontaneous and irrepressible gaiety that was her greatest charm.

  My brother Willie and his lovely Rose were favorite guests. Willie had inherited a large share of my father's charm. He had the same joyousness and overwhelming spirits, and he possessed a sense of humor which a vivid imagination enhanced. He was very human, very lovable and very popular. I have never known a better host. When one crossed the threshold of his home or boarded his yacht the genial friendliness of his welcome immediately awakened a sense of well-being. He seemed so happy to see one and so anxious to give one a good time. And generous by nature, he gave of himself as well as of the wealth with which he was endowed. At the outbreak of World War II he parted quite definitely with the thing he loved best when he gave his yacht the Alva to the government of the United States. I believe that in his heart he knew that never again would he go on those long voyages in search of marine specimens for his Museum, or stand on the bridge in a storm navigating his ship. From his earliest years he indulged in speed, and brought the first racing automobile, "The White Ghost," to America. As a master mariner he took his yachts Ara and Alva round the world, and toward the end of his life, in his seaplane, he flew round South America. When he died at sixty-four the tributes from comrades in the Navy, in which he had served in World War I, and from friends in every walk of life were sincere and touching. There had been something fundamentally so good and kind in him; few failed to recognize it.

  We found our life on the Riviera, which combined the pleasures of the country with the more intellectual attractions a city offers, very pleasant. At the opera at Nice and in the Prince of Monaco's little theater new operas were given and one heard the best artists. It was there I witnessed Horowitz's triumph when as a young and unknown artist he emerged from Russia. Toscanini was living nearby and the engagement and marriage of his daughter to Horowitz later became the romance of our neighborhood. Diaghileff and his Ballet spent winters at Monte Carlo, where many new ballets had their first nights. He brought his dancers to a garden party we gave, but the ballerinas were less beautiful in the vast amphitheater of our mountains than in the perfect lighting of a stage setting. Only Karsavina with her poetic distinction held her own.

  Among the works of young composers which the Principality so lavishly produced, I remember the ballet Britannia which Lord Berners came from England to launch. With patriotic fervor our large English colony turned out to applaud. Lord Berners came to lunch with us at Lou Sueil, and I had occasion to examine his car. There was in front of his seat a small harmonium on which it was his habit to note motifs inspired by the countryside. The lining at the back of the car had butterflies stilettoed against it. A few days later, in one of our drives, we passed a drawn-up car from which came the sound of music, and saw him sitting at his harmonium with butterflies as a halo round his head, an ironic smile on his lips and a monocle in his eye. We realized how easily French passers-by might observe "un autre de ces milords Anglais fous!"

  Driving to Monaco, I used to think what a pity it was that a greater vision had not been granted to a Prince who, to his royal prerogatives, added the privilege of a kingdom where a Casino paid the charges and citizens were untaxed. What other country could have offered such opportunities? Where but here could one have created a court like that of the Medici or Valois where men of genius were honored and artists encouraged? The Palace which now only achieved garishness might have been beautiful. Evenings of boredom might have held eclectic pleasures. One came away intolerant of such wasted opportunities.

  But if the little city lacked the beauties men can achieve, its setting was incomparable. Motoring over those beautiful mountains into some hidden valley, picnicking near a torrent still icy from the snows above, then climbing again to the peaks in search of Alpine flowers—these were delights we often enjoyed. We used to go, a cavalcade of cars, with our spades and trowels, to dig up the wild flowers of the Alps, to transplant them to our gardens. There were so many species, they were so delicate and fragile, one wondered how they could have grown in the arid soil and the snows.

  In our little group there was Henry May, a dear friend, whose knowledge of art enhanced the pleasure of finding the primitives we often discovered in some old Romanesque church in a fortressed village perilously clinging to the mountainside. There was Johnny Johnson, an American, whose love of flowers led him to create two of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen— one in the heart of England and one at Menton, in whose favored climate he grows shrubs and flowers he scours the earth to find. A flight to China in search of a new azalea, a hop to Corsica for wild flowers, a voyage to Australia for a rare acacia were nothing to him. In his garden all newcomers seemed to thrive, and with unfailing generosity he gave us the fruits of his labors. There was Lady Katherine Lambton, whose beauty and charm made me think of her royal Stuart ancestor, and Norah Lindsay (Mrs. Harry Lindsay) whose Irish beauty recalled Sir Joshua Reynolds's children, those puckish faces with elfin eyes. She was an accomplished pianist, a tireless reader and possessed the Irish gift for an amusing tale. She often helped us plan our flower borders and laughed with us over the French gardener's dismay at the riotous disorder of an English herbaceous garden. One day in trying to explain why the phloxes had not kept true to color, waving despairing hands, he cried, "But Madame, I cannot prevent the butterflies from playing with the flowers!"—a lovely description of nature's propagating act.

  With these friends
we explored the towns and ruins of Provence, often lunching alfresco. We each brought a dish—cold curried chicken—potato salad—the little artichokes that are so tender and flavorful—cheese and light pastries with the purple figs—or cherries just picked from our trees. A vin du pays and steaming coffee ended a perfect meal. The dogs that accompanied us had their specially prepared bowls.

  Sometimes instead of picnicking we went to an inn renowned for mountain trout or the Mediterranean loup—a fish that when grilled on the cinders of aromatic herbs is no longer a fish, but a dish fit for gods. We grew to know toutes les spécialités de la maison, from the bouillabaisse with its saffron flavor to the meringues with a pastry light as thistledown and a cream whipped to a bubble. The vin du -pays—bellet, iced to a rosy glow—added the headiness which in America is supplied by the cocktail; but it was a headiness founded on a perfectly cooked meal, not on the yearnings of an empty stomach, a headiness, moreover, whose ebullience is flavored by wit and gaiety, like the warm sparkle of the sun.

  Driving home in open cars with the sun gliding into the sea, its pink glow cast upward onto the snowcapped Alps, one held one's breath as round each bend a new beauty came to view—low olive trees with their silvery foliage, straight somber cypresses, stunted oaks clinging to steep planes where sheep grazed on meadows that smelled of rosemary and thyme. Cascading brooks leaped down the mountainside and from far above we heard the bugle calling the chasseurs des Alpes to their rest. Sometimes we met them on the mountain roads—long convoys of mules and men hurrying with their short, quick step on some route march, for the frontier was near and Mussolini unaccountable. Sometimes we crossed into Italy where the mountains were steeper, less welcoming, and there were no little inns with their tables and chairs under red and yellow awnings, no culinary appeal to tempt our appetite. I was always glad to come back to France here the peasant said Good Day as you passed and made life friendly with his courteous greeting.

  Very different from such lovely days were those we spent at Monte Carlo watching International tennis championships, in which such players as Tilden, Von Cramm, Cochet, Borotra, Ryan, Mlle. D'Alvares and Suzanne Lenglen came to compete. The practical short white linen dress had just been introduced by Lenglen. Suzanne had an ugly face but an athletic body which she used with grace, the precision of her footwork having been taught her by her father on a tennis court marked in squares like a chessboard. On one of Lord Balfour's visits to us she partnered him at tennis on our court, and with her quick mind her repartees were sometimes as good as her volleys.

  Sometimes we went to the horse races on the pretty little track at Nice. There appeared to be races of sorts every week-bicycle races and foot races over the mountains, and an auto race in which cars circled the Principality a hundred times, emitting the most horrible noise. I remember a nightmare of such rushing, roaring speed which I witnessed from Mr. McComber's yacht in the harbor of Monaco. We had a splendid view of the competitors as they climbed the narrow streets, streaked dangerously round comers, and came rocketing down the outer boulevard. Strangely enough there were few accidents, no doubt because of the precautions taken and the sandbags that banked the turns. But I was always glad to leave that inferno of rushing noise below and to climb back to my mountain, though even there distant echoes reached us.

  With the coming of spring in the North we longed for the fresh green of budding leaves and, turning our backs on the azure sea, we would motor back by way of Aix and Avignon or else across the Alps to Grenoble and the eastern provinces and so on to Paris, following the road taken by Napoleon on his fateful return from the Island of Elba.

  11: Saint Georges-Motel - Peaceful Summers

  AS THE years had passed we had found our house in Paris. beginning to demand a special life of its own, as houses are apt to do. This was not to our taste, since we both preferred the simpler pleasures of the country. So about 1926 we began to look for a small place near Paris, and happily at Saint Georges-Motel came upon the little château where thereafter we spent our summers.

  It was love at first sight—a love we have remained faithful to, for of all lovely places I have seen, it has the most charm. Situated on the border of Normandy near the forest of Dreux, it stood in a glade of high trees; one saw it only as entering the gates one came down from the village through a wide avenue of great lindens and chestnuts. It was a tall and elegant house built of pink bricks and was capped by a high roof of blue slates. In its narrow center were evenly spaced windows through which one saw running water and green parterres beyond. At the two ends were towers bathed in a wide moat whose waters were deep and clear. These waters also enclosed the fore court which one entered across a bridge through an iron grille that bore the stamp of Louis XIII. The château itself was some years older; in one of its rooms, it was said, Henry IV had slept the night before the Battle of Ivry which gave him Paris. It was the rapt seclusion of the place that charmed us. Immense trees attested to the dignity of pleasances planted for pleasure in days when life had an unhurried ease. In a wood close by one saw down an alley a stone boar on its pedestal, recalling scenes of past hunts, and on occasions a stag from the forest beyond would be driven to bay in our river.

  The château and grounds had long been neglected, since the owner lived with his thirteen children in another house better suited to so large a family. It was rumored that a descendant of the first châtelaine—a count of the old regime—had with his wife been victims of the Revolution. He must have been a man of taste to have respected the house built by his ancestors. It was only later that pavilions had been added. We removed these modem structures, which left the château intact in its rose-colored beauty. We restored the gardens and laid out parterres where fountains played amid boxwood traceries. My favorite garden was away in an apple orchard. Enclosed in high walls on which grew roses and honeysuckle, it held a pool and borders of sweet smelling flowers. There were also water gardens with weeping willows, hydrangeas, iris, day lilies, lupines and anemones. Meadows beyond skirted the river Avre and where it joined the bigger river Eure an old mill stood. This mill in time became an enchanting place which we lent to friends, and in the summers of 1938 and 1939, when it was full of children. Motel was gay with laughter and sound. There were children riding in the forest or jumping their ponies over hurdles in the fields, children playing tennis and swimming in the pool, children fishing for trout in the rivers or canoeing on canals, children playing golf or bicycling in the gardens—it is with a pang that I recall the sweet careless gaiety of those last prewar summers.

  The villagers loved their château. They watched the changes we made with critical eyes. In September we used to give a fête champêtre for our neighbors. It was a gay garden party to which chatelains from properties nearby brought their households, and peasants came in all their finery. The village priest and the lady of light virtue were equally welcome; everyone was asked without distinction. The invitations stated from four to seven and punctually at four I would see from the hall where we awaited them a long procession coming up the avenue and crossing the Cour d'Honneur. As we greeted them I had a present ready for every child. There was a platform for dancing on the lawn beyond and on either side stood a pavilion topped by flags where champagne, cider, brioches and every kind of cake were served. Under the trees the children ate at long laden tables. A band played and there were conjurers and clowns. I remember one year when the children from our vacation school danced a minuet for our gratification. As they emerged from the château they looked like little ghosts from an elegant past, the boys in breeches and wigs, the girls in hooped skirts with powdered curls.

  Toward the end of the evening the dances would become gayer, and men grown garrulous with champagne would argue with their wives who wished to take them home. But good manners invariably prevailed, and we never had a disagreeable incident; for everyone looked forward to "Madame Balsan's fête."

  During the summer holidays we opened a recreation school for the village children, for I was d
ismayed to find how little French children played. There was a stream where they swam and a playground for games, and the girls were taught to sew, while the boys engaged in carpentry. At the end of the holidays the children put on an entertainment in our honor, and a grand finale with "The Star-Spangled Banner" sung in English and the "Marseillaise" in French invariably ended a delightful performance which actors and audience equally enjoyed. Remembering how shy die children had been at the school treats I had given at Blenheim, it struck me as typical of democracy that these French children wished in some measure to repay the good times we had given them; and that they succeeded was somehow part of the French genius.

  Here at Saint Georges-Motel we were privileged to become hosts to a number of friends to whom we lent small houses on the estate. This group of artists, musicians and writers centered round Paul Maze, himself a Norman, who on his marriage to a Scotch widow had perforce adopted her nationality. Paul is an artist not only in oils and pastels, but also in his truly Bohemian mode of life. I often heard him describe, in a bilingual flow of French and English, an incident during World War I, when he joined the British Army as a volunteer. In the retreat from Mons he became separated from his unit, and when eventually he was found by an English company, his loss of his identification papers together with his French accent, and English uniform caused him to be arrested as a spy. There was short shrift for spies in that disastrous retreat, but as luck would have it an English officer who knew him happened to ride by and shouted, "Hello, Paul, what are you doing there?" To which Paul answered, "I am about to be shot!"

 

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