The Glitter and the Gold

by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

  During the war the family lived in the east wing where their suite of rooms contained a small library and dining room in addition to the Duke's and Duchess's private apartment. There were rooms upstairs for the children and for a few guests. Many of my countrymen came to know Blenheim under these conditions. My son was Military Liaison Officer to the regular commander of the Southern Region and Lieutenant Colonel Liaison Officer, United States Forces, from 1942 to 1945. My daughter-in-law's gift for organization and her admirable devotion to public service found expression as Chief Commandant in the Auxiliary Territorial Services, and later in the British Red Cross.

  My readers will, I trust, forgive this digression, remembering family feelings they no doubt themselves indulge; and since these memoirs have, against my wishes, become a personal record, rather than simply the picture of a period I had at first envisioned, something must be said of those dear to me.

  In 1939 I went to Blenheim with anxious forebodings, for the international horizon was dark. At dinner, sitting next to Monsieur Corbin, the popular French Ambassador, I found it difficult to share the diplomatic detachment his conversation maintained. Yet at that same dinner, at my granddaughter's table, was the eldest son of the German Crown Prince whom, I was told, Winston had suggested using as a counterfoil to Nazism under Hider. Monsieur Corbin, the perfect diplomat, avoided such issues, preferring a personal topic, and I listened with growing pleasure to his praise of my son Ivor's accomplishments. Possessor of some fine pictures which ranged from Cezanne to Matisse, Ivor had acquired both knowledge and taste. His controversies with Roger Fry in art journals may have been incomprehensible to all but the initiated, but the exhibitions of French contemporary art he arranged had won him a consensus of praise and, later, his work for General de Gaulle brought him the Legion of Honor.

  Nevertheless, in spite of these, to me, flattering considerations, I suffered the same unease that had afflicted me once in Russia when, surrounded by the glittering splendor of the Czar's court, I sensed impending disaster. For again in this brilliant scene at Blenheim, I sensed the end of an era. Only a few months later these rooms were dismantled and the ugly paraphernalia of officialdom installed for the duration of a tragic war. But on that evening the scene was still gay, and my pleasure great in meeting so many old friends. I supped with Winston and Anthony Eden and wandered out to the lovely terraces Marlborough had built before his death. These, together with the reconstructed fore court, were the work of Duchene. With their formal lines and classic ornaments, they were the right setting for so imposing a monument as Blenheim Palace. Indeed Vanbrugh had contemplated the fore court Duchene designed, as we discovered when breaking through foundations.

  How rewarding are my memories of Blenheim in my son's time when his life, with Mary and his children, was all that I wished mine could have been.

  We returned to Paris in time to witness the great military review held there on July 14th, the national holiday. Winston Churchill, a guest of honor in the reviewing stand, said to me afterward when I commented on the large tanks that had shaken the Champs Élysées in their progress, "The government had to show the French that their economies had been transferred from the idleness of the stocking to the safety of the tank."

  But I was horrified to hear that the parade had held all our timbered houses with gabled roofs. The churches, too, were fine, with fretted stonework, and there were old inns with good food and wine, but there was little accommodation for refugees. It was indeed regrettable that no better provision could be made for them, but with humble philosophy they accepted the makeshift lodgings that were all one could give them. It was surprising, considering the influx of so many strangers, that we had no serious epidemic; but we made a point of securing better care for the children, for whom we provided serums and certified milk. The adults were, as a rule, well fed in some central hall, and we found in nearly every case that the Mayor had done his best to carry out the Préfet's instructions.

  On these visits of inspection, accompanied by Dr. Du Bouchet, we used to leave the château at 9:00 a.m. provided with a hot dish of food and a thermos of coffee, and often returned only after dark. It was so cold that winter that even with hot water bags at our feet we used to freeze as we stopped to eat our meal. One night as we were returning home, the chauffeur suddenly pulled up in the dark and I found myself looking down the long barrel of a field gun, while English voices shouted to us to stop. It was an English Regiment on its way to Evreux— one of their headquarters.

  Personal reports sometimes reached us from the front. Our agent, during the few days' leave he spent with his wife, told us of the thousands of mines the enemy had laid in the abandoned villages in No-Man's-Land. They were hidden with such ingenuity that a false step or a curious impulse could result in ignominious death or maiming or blinding, and the men had, in some cases, become demoralized, refusing to deal with so tricky and deadly a menace. He explained that in order to encourage the men, an officer would lie on the ground and with his left hand grope for the mines; then with his face hidden and his right hand safely by his side, he would undo the detonator. We were spared the recital of how many had lost their lives or been maimed in the progress.

  The French government, perhaps thinking that we in the safety of our homes did not realize what this so-called phony war meant to the men in the front line, one night turned the radio on to a French outpost and for a few short minutes we lived with those men. At first we heard them talking in low tones. Then came a sentry with the news that a German patrol was approaching. In the pregnant silence we were conscious that the men were taking their arms and positions. Then with the crack of hand grenades we knew they were fighting. I could not bear the words phony war after that evening. They seemed to me an insult to brave men whose nerves were as sensitive as ours, and on whose endurance our safety depended; but it was not often that we had such direct evidence of men in action. At best there was little news of a trustworthy character, so that rumors and hearsay appeared all the more ominous. As the winter neared its end, every day brought fears that the invasion of Holland and Belgium had begun. The German radio gave much more news than the French and inevitably one listened to its terrifying propaganda. Dressed in fur coats to keep warm, we used to huddle round the fire those long winter evenings, my husband and Paul and a White Russian, a friend who replaced our agent and helped us manage our property. Sometimes Paul and Basil Davidoff and I played Towie; it was better than talking, which somehow increased one's anxieties. Jacques had rejoined the French Army and was often away on various missions.

  On Friday, May loth, my maid woke me with the news that the Germans had invaded Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg, and were marching south and west. We knew then that the inevitable had begun and would soon be upon us. I told her to pack a valise and to put it under my bed.

  There was not much done that day. Everywhere people were gathered in groups discussing the news. The last few men of military age or those on leave had gone to join their regiments. The radio informed us that bombs had been dropped on Lyon, Lille, Nancy and Pontoise. German planes were evidently numerous enough to visit every comer of France, besides carrying on a great offensive.

  At the sanatorium I found my matron worrying about what advice she should give our pupil nurses. Some of the parents were telephoning their daughters to return home. Most of the girls wished to remain at their posts; others felt they should be with their mothers who had been left alone. It was difficult to find an answer to the plea that at a time like this families should be united, but there was work to be done in the sanatorium and most of them stayed at their posts. Parents were coming from Paris to ask if we would keep their children with us. I reassured them that we were not closing the sanatorium.

  The village of Saint Georges-Motel had three hundred and fifty inhabitants, and on the assumption that such a small community would not be considered worth bombing no shelters had been provided. We relied upon the forest of Dreux, only a kilometer across the river,
for safety.

  Returning home from the sanatorium I found Paul Maze, his daughter Pauline, my husband and Davidoff listening to the latest news. The cold impersonal voice of the speaker as hour by hour in measured tones he announced the German advance in all its incredible swiftness was somehow shocking. We studied our maps in sickening apprehension. Every one of us knew in our hearts that there was no hope, but our lips were sealed. My husband was the only exception; he kept us all cheerful, his trust in the French Army remained firm and in spite of every new disaster he refused to be shaken.

  With the invasion of the Lowlands came an ever growing influx of refugees. Hurrying south, they flowed even into our little backwater of a village. First came the automobiles of the rich. They did not stop at Saint Georges but I met their owners at Dreux in the Bank of France, exchanging their worthless money for French currency which still had its quoted value. Then followed a sad procession. Once again the great farm wagons drawn by four splendid Percherons were trekking south leaving their crops, their cattle, their homes to the mercy of the invader. How typically French they were, those farm wagons, filled with hay and household goods, accompanied by a boy who cracked his whip as he walked beside his horses. Perched on the top of one of these I saw a little old lady in an armchair. She was surrounded by her grandchildren, and was dressed in her best black gown with a shawl crossed over her chest, on her head one of those lacy high bonnets French peasants still wear. When I spoke to her she said sadly, "This is the third time les Boches have driven us from our home—once before the Battle of the Mame—a second time in the late German drive just before the end of the last war—and now again." I knew then that the enemy was in France; of late the radio had been strangely vague. Bicyclists were now passing through in droves. One day I saw an old man slowly pushing his machine along while holding his wife on the seat. They were exhausted for they had been on the road two weeks, and we made them rest with us until they had sufficiently recovered to proceed. We had opened a canteen in the main street and laid mattresses wherever there was room.

  On May 11th the bell clanged from the church tower and the priest summoned us to a service of intercession. Dressed in black, the women walked through the village streets with bowed heads and clasped hands as if in prayer. From all sides processions of children joined me as I hurried to the church; even the babies came, solemn and wide-eyed. They had been told to pray for their fathers. In the church I saw women who had been widowed in the last war now interceding for their sons, and orphans were praying for their brothers. Many candles had been lit—it seemed strangely still and sad. On my way home I met one of our gardeners. He was an old man and when I spoke to him he seemed obsessed. "Cette fois its nous auront"—"This time they'll get us," he kept repeating. I tried to reassure him and I remember saying, "The Americans will surely liberate you," but he shook his head. "Trop tard," he said. And for him it was too late, for as the Germans moved in he shot himself.

  The evacuation of our sanatorium and of the refugee children presented a difficult problem. It gave me much anxious thought and was complicated by the attitude of the Ministry of Health, which refused to give me definite instructions. After numerous telephonic communications of a fairly acrid and dictatorial nature —in which I had been told to observe the decrees of the military authorities, which forbade the evacuation of refugee children whom the authorities themselves would evacuate should the necessity arise—the right to move the sanatorium was finally conceded, since it was a private, and not a public institution. The Minister, however, stressed the need for discretion, explaining that the children must be moved in small groups, so as not to create panic in the village. I was advised to look for a house in the south which could be used as a temporary sanatorium. All the while the Germans were nearing the Seine which was only thirty kilometers away, and I heard of a sanatorium near Roubaix which had not been evacuated in time. Engulfed in an awful silence, its occupants had become lost to their world. In my telephonic conversation with the Ministry I brought this up as an example of what might happen to us. "Ah oui, Mme. L. a été bien légère—mais elle est intelligente—elle se débrouillera," was the laconic answer. Having no wish to be considered "careless" by parents who had expressed confidence in my judgment, convinced that I would never settle matters satisfactorily with the Germans, I became obsessed with the desire to evacuate these children in time. Plans were made to remove them in the various trucks, ambulances and cars we had. We tied clothes in linen bags to each car—we stowed foodstuffs under the seats—we piled mattresses onto the floors and roofs. Then we had a rehearsal so that everyone should know exactly what to do in case of emergency, for contact with the refugees had shown me that one rarely thinks clearly under the stress of fear. Indeed, I had been appalled by the useless things many had carried away in the haste of departure. One old man in particular had impressed me. He carried a basket with great care. I hoped he had saved something of value, but when he opened it ten little ducklings walked out and he asked my permission to put them on our pond. "Is that all you have brought?" I asked him. "Yes, Madame," he answered. "We were told the German Bicyclist Corps were only five kilometers away, and—comment voulez-vous—l could not leave these ducks for them."

  A few days later, as I was writing to a friend in America, a servant rushed in looking for Monsieur. It appeared he had seen a German plane drop a parachute in the forest of Dreux a few hundred yards across our river. Monsieur was shortly found, and armed with a shotgun and accompanied by Louis who had spotted the parachutist went off in a small car to hunt for him. Meanwhile, running to the Big Mill, I alerted Paul and sent him, with his antiquated pistol, to join in the chase. But the forest of Dreux is large, and this Fifth Columnist was never found.

  Disguised as a French priest, a gendarme or a commercial traveler he was without doubt already engaged in some nefarious plan for our destruction. Parachutists were now becoming numerous, and during the night one heard enemy planes overhead. Something had to be done about it, and the Mayor of our village called a public meeting. Plans for our safety were to be discussed. The garde chasse announced these meetings, beating a drum as he walked through the village streets, but since he was very old and his voice very weak he was accompanied by a child who in shrill tones shouted the hour and place of assembly. Jacques and Paul attended the meeting. It was a scene such as Balzac could have written and Coquelin or Raimu have excelled in acting. What comedy and tragedy it contained—that group of elderly villagers summoned to stem and outwit a corps of Hitler's Fifth Columnists! For such was their assignment. It is truly remarkable that any parachutists were taken, but there were at least ten alarms for every genuine one. All through that week the villagers retailed reports of doubtful characters they had seen, and we would comb the countryside in fruitless searches. Questioning them was confusing, for no two witnesses agreed. There were long and circumstantial descriptions of strangers seen, or conversations overheard, which led nowhere, for often with surprising levity the witness would suddenly discredit the whole tale and with the peasants' dislike for being cornered reply, "Eh, que voulez-vous—j'ai veut-être pas bien vu"—"What would you, perhaps I did not see aright."

  On May 17th the Préfet summoned me to Evreux, a town some twenty kilometers distant. He asked us to prepare food and quarters for 45,000 refugees who were due in trains from the north. It was an emergency order. The following day they would be sorted and sent to towns in the south indicated in the evacuation plan. No sooner had we begun than another order came to prepare hospital accommodation for wounded civilians for whom no provision had as yet been made. There was a Boys Vocational Training School which we immediately evacuated, returning the boys to their parents. We put clean sheets on the four hundred beds and installed a first-aid clinic; a cook prepared a good meal, the Matron and several nurses from our sanatorium were put in charge, and at sunset we were ready to receive them. All night they waited—the wounded did not arrive until next day. Their train had been bombed and disable
d, and they had taken refuge in ditches, and were finally brought to Evreux in motorcars. Many had been obliged to walk, and on the road they had been raked by machine guns from low-flying planes. A distraught woman told me that her two children had been killed walking a few yards in front of her. "I saw the aviator's eyes as he aimed at them," she kept repeating in her frenzied grief. They were all in desperate straits, their garments caked with blood, their shoes in shreds. My husband and I went out to buy clothes for them. I shall always remember a young woman's joy when we spread a pretty little dress on her bed: "C'est pour moi? Oh, Madame, comme vous êtes bonne,"—"It is for me? Oh, Madame, you are very kind," and for a moment she forgot the bullet in her breast and the loss of all she had. The magnitude of the disaster appalled me. What could one do with these thousands of human beings, lost as they were in a whirlpool of terror and misery? They had but one thought—to escape from the tanks and bombing planes of a ruthless enemy.

  In the wards doctors and nurses were removing bandages and we saw the serious wounds bombs and bullets had made. In some cases gangrene had already set in, necessitating amputations. The patients were brave and composed. One woman kept telling me that a doctor who had given her first aid had recommended an X-ray examination. It was hard to explain that this little impromptu hospital had no X-ray available. The military authorities had announced that only the graver cases could remain in Evreux; all those who could be moved were immediately to be evacuated to safer zones.