173 burst into heart-rending sobs: Charles Roux, 30ff; Delay, 66–73.
174 his body was transferred to Paris: Nécrologie, Le Gaulois, January 2, 1920.
175 Neither Chanel nor Diana Capel: In a letter to Freda Dudley, Edward, Prince of Wales, wrote of Capel’s death and explicitly mentioned Capel’s deteriorating marriage: “I heard this evening … that Boy Capel (Diana’s second husband) has been killed motoring … on the Riviera.… I think she’s d—dwell out of it as he was a proper ‘four-letter man’ and she wasn’t happy. But it’s sad for her to become a widow a second time!!” Edward, Prince of Wales, 298.
176 service as a foreigner in France: Notices of Capel’s death: L’Eclaireur de Nice, December 23, 1919; The Times (London), December 24, 1919; The New York Times, December 25, 1919.
177 Boy felt no need to conceal: Currency conversion and comparison to spending power calculated at http://www.measuringworth.com/ppoweruk/.
178 but perhaps a triple one: Lisa Chaney reports that Yvonne had a son, but it remains unclear who the child’s father was.
179 after her springtime birth month: Three years after Boy’s death, Diana married her third husband, Vere Fane, 14th Earl of Westmorland, with whom she had three more children. Diana, Countess of Westmorland, lived to the age of ninety—outliving her last husband by thirty-five years.
180 Chanel had bought Bel Respiro: Lisa Chaney has discovered this surprising turn of real estate events. Chaney, 150.
181 “I won’t prettify this memory”: Morand, L’Allure de Chanel, 65.
182 later years did Chanel tell: Delay, 73.
183 “I knew he had not really”: Haedrich, 73.
184 no one ever saw who: Photo and information about the memorial are courtesy of the Société d’histoire de Fréjus et de sa région. I thank especially Daniel Hainaut and Martine Alison.
4. GRAND DUKE DMITRI
1 promoting Chanel couture in Canada: Charles-Roux, 298–301.
2 “When I realized that my business”: Vilmorin, 94.
3 “The Russians revealed”: Morand, L’Allure de Chanel, 95. According to Claude Delay, Chanel said, “These grand dukes, they’re all the same, handsome but there’s nothing in their heads.… They drink to quiet their fear … Tall, handsome, superb, these Russians. But underneath, nothing!: just emptiness and vodka.” Quoted in Delay, 109.
4 “She spoke often to me”: Jacques Chazot, Chazot Jacques (Paris: Editions Stock, 1975), 81.
5 Dmitri as the ideal candidate: Excerpts of his diaries have been seen by a few people, but the bulk of them have been housed at Harvard’s Houghton Library, where they were locked until 2010, when I had a paleographic locksmith open them, with the permission of the archivists.
6 He attended meetings in Paris: Chanel’s passport records for this period show trips to Switzerland and Germany at the same times that Dmitri would have been visiting his supporters in those countries. Paris police archives.
7 “Inside every Auvergnat”: Morand, L’Allure de Chanel, 95.
8 “Dmitri was extremely attractive”: Prince Felix Youssoupoff, Lost Splendor: The Amazing Memoirs of the Man Who Killed Rasputin, trans. Ann Green and Nicholas Katkoff (1953; repr., New York: Helen Marx Books, 2003), 94.
9 close siblings all their lives: Prince Michel Romanoff, introduction to Jacques Ferrand, Le Grand Duc Paul Alexandrovitch de Russie: Fils d’empereur, frère d’empereur, oncle d’empereur: Sa famille, sa descendance, chroniques et photographies (Paris: Jacques Ferrand, 1993).
10 forcibly expelled from their homes: His tenure also saw the infamous Khodynka tragedy of 1896 in which more than 1,300 people were trampled to death in a mass panic at a public celebration for the coronation of the last tsar, Nicholas II. Sergei’s security forces had been partly to blame for the disaster, having failed to control the surging crowds, but he refused all responsibility for the event, and declined to appear at the site of the accident or any of the victims’ funerals.
11 “He trod a golden path”: Grand Duchess of Russia, Marie, A Princess in Exile (New York: Viking Press, 1932), 74.
12 drugs were readily available: Youssoupoff, 94.
13 penchant for cross-dressing: Ibid., 87.
14 exchanged debauchery for mysticism: “The weakness of his character made him dangerously easy to influence,” wrote Felix of Dmitri. Youssoupoff, 94. Princess Marie also cites her brother’s immaturity at the time, mentioning their father’s concern for Dmitri’s future.
15 destroy the Duma: Youssoupoff, 214.
16 depicting a demonic Rasputin: Recent scholarship has demonstrated that Rasputin likely never ingested those poisoned cakes (he followed a strict diet and ate no sugar), never emerged from the river, and simply died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds. See Edvard Radzinsky, The Rasputin File, trans. Judson Rosengrant (New York: Nan A. Talese, 2000), 455–77.
17 Rasputin was shot to death: Radzinsky maintains that Dmitri fired the shot that killed Rasputin (Radzinsky, 482). Colin Wilson has written that the entire tea cake story is fictional, and refers to the murder of Rasputin as a “sordid and discreditable incident—the murder of an unarmed man by four terrified assassins.” Colin Wilson, Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1964), 192.
18 joint participation in murder: In a letter dated February 26, 1920, Felix writes to Dmitri:
Having come to know you, I loved you even more and my attachment to you became still greater. [The verb used here in Russian for “to know” suggests the more carnal, biblical sense of knowing, another indication of a possible intimate relationship between the two.] Please understand that I am not asking anything of you and that I am guided solely by the feeling of deep devotion to you and by a sense of sadness at the fact that you, whom I loved so fervently and in whom I believed so strongly, deserted me in my blackest moment.
Felix Youssoupoff to Dmitri, trans. Philipp Penka, February 26, 1920, Grand Duke of Russia Diaries and Personal Record Books, MS Russ 92, Houghton Library, Harvard University (hereafter cited as Dmitri Diaries), vol. 18.2, supplementary folder.
The following day, February 27, 1920, Dmitri writes to Felix:
On December 24, 1916 we parted as friends. We met in May 1919 and only a memory was left of our friendship. Why? Because we view a single question with such different eyes and from such absolutely different perspectives—that this alone suffices to destroy any friendship. You understand perfectly well what I am referring to, of course. I am speaking about the murder of Rasputin. For me this incident always remains a dark stain on my conscience. I never speak about it. Why? Because I believe that murder will always be murder—try as you might to lend this fact mystical significance!… Believe me that I would gladly look at you the way I did before December of 1916. But alas! It is impossible.
Dmitri to Felix Youssoupoff, trans. Philipp Penka, personal correspondence, February 27, 1920, Dmitri Diaries, vol. 18.2, supplementary folder (possibly unsent).
19 “The social class which had money”: Dmitri Diaries, May 4, 1920, vol. 19.1.
20 prime contender in their eyes: “I am well aware that they desire a candidate with an uncorrupted conscience, and because of this everyone is turning away from Kirill and largely for this reason their choice falls on me,” he wrote on February 28, 1921. Dmitri Diaries, vol. 23.1, 150. Dmitri’s police surveillance file reads: “High society of the Russian colony in Paris consistently occupies itself with the re-establishment of the empire in Russia. The designated candidate at the present time for these Russian monarchists is the Grand Duke Dmitri.” Paris police archives.
21 the dream of becoming tsar: “The people who visit me are of course all deeply convinced that Russia will be a monarchy and they all allude to the fact that I am a desirable pretender, but apparently nobody dares or is able to begin the preparatory work.” Dmitri Diaries, May 4, 1920, vol. 19.1, 18.
22 “I will indeed be someone”: Dmitri Diaries, February 28, 1921, vol. 23.1, 150.
<
br /> 23 soon approached 100,000 francs: “My old passion for gambling … is stronger than I am.… There is not a single minute when I do not think about my debt, which is after all already nearing 100 thousand Francs.” Dmitri Diaries, June 30, 1920, vol. 19.1, 155.
24 reigning royals, ambassadors, and celebrities: Names figuring in his visitor log include Rothschild, Windsor, Radziwill, Misia Sert, the American ambassador to France, Mrs. Cole Porter, and the Duchess of Northumberland. Dmitri, Visitors Book, Houghton Library.
25 “The thought of marrying”: Dmitri Diaries, January 31, 1921, vol. 23.1, 71.
26 “On that day I ate dinner”: Ibid., January 23, 1921, vol. 23.1, 82. According to Justine Picardie, Dmitri was having an affair with Marthe Davelli, who was more than happy to turn him over to Coco, complaining that he had become “too expensive” for her. Justine Picardie, Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 128.
27 he knew through polo circles: Fiemeyer and Palasse-Labrunie, Intimate Chanel, 30.
28 “tried fiercely to hide”: Quoted in Madsen, 145.
29 “she herself started the rumor”: Police report, July 1923, Paris police archives.
30 meant to plan his ascension: Photographs of Chanel’s passport at the Paris police archives prove that she traveled to Berlin several times during this period.
31 the splendid Hôtel Le Meurice: The Paris police archives suggest that Chanel and Dmitri lived together in Zurich on the Bahnhofstrasse, although no mention of this appears anywhere else. The police files also state that the couple took up adjoining suites at the Meurice, although Chanel would have had another apartment at the time.
32 the fashionable car to drive: According to Claude Delay, the staff at Rolls-Royce had tried to dissuade Chanel from purchasing the car in this color, but she had no doubts. “You’ll see, everyone will soon want to order them.” Delay, 67.
33 Chanel footing all bills: She loved to buy presents for friends and urged Dmitri to shop for a dog in Nice, although he seems not to have found one he wanted. Dmitri Diaries, March 30, 1921, vol. 25.1, 104.
34 “I could not have chosen”: Dmitri Diaries, March 30 and April 15, 1921, vol. 25.1, 103–6.
35 “Coco is … sad”: Dmitri Diaries, April 16, 1921, vol. 25.1, 167.
36 “I personally have no illusions”: Dmitri Diaries, March 31, 1921, vol. 25.1, 75.
37 further threatened Dmitri’s reputation: Even the Paris police noted that Chanel’s “liaison with the Grand Duke is badly looked upon by the White Russian party.”
38 Danish countess Marie-Louise Moltke: “The more time passes, the more this Marie-Louise Moltke appeals to me.” Dmitri Diaries, February 14, 1921, vol. 23.1, 113.
39 “I am not capable”: Dmitri Diaries, April 15, 1921, vol. 25.1, 106–7.
40 “I am not used to”: Ibid., 107.
41 Stravinsky got wind of Chanel’s: Chanel later told Paul Morand that Misia Sert maliciously sent a telegram to Stravinsky reading, “Coco is a little seamstress who prefers grand dukes to Artists,” inciting his rage. Sergei Diaghilev reputedly then sent a telegram to Coco reading, “Do not come [back to Garches]. He wants to kill you.” “I was angry for weeks with Misia after this treacherous telegram. She swore she’d sent nothing of the sort. Once again, I pardoned her.” Morand, L’Allure de Chanel, 153.
42 whisked him off to Biarritz: Delay, 113.
43 spiritual gurus Lida Churchill: Dmitri, Private Papers, Houghton Library. The list included Hara’s Road to Success, Number, Name, and Color, and The Complection [sic] Beautiful; Lida Churchill’s Magic Seven, and Flora Bigelow Guest’s Casting Out Fear. Hashnu O. Hara was the inventor of “psychometry,” a theosophy-inflected form of extrasensory perception. His book Number, Name, and Color—which figures on Dmitri’s list—purports to explain the magical powers of numbers and colors, including their ability to “command luchre.” Hashnu O. Hara, Number, Name, and Color (London: L. N. Fowler, 1907), 3, accessed at http://books.google.com/books?id=5bf1NyNUE5QC&pg=PA1&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false. Dmitri added a small annotation (in English) next to this title in his notebook: “Very difficult.” Lida Churchill’s The Magic Seven offers spiritual exercises designed to “center one’s self,” “concentrate the mind,” and—the most urgent goal for Dmitri—“command opulence.” Lida Churchill, The Magic Seven (New York: Alliance Publishing, 1901), accessed at http://www.surrenderworks.com/newthoughtlibrary/Lida%20A.%20Churchill%20-%20The%20Magic%20Seven/The%20Magic%20Seven%20Summary%20and%20Exercise.pdf. The techniques may have proved ineffective; “I didn’t like it,” notes Dmitri alongside this title.
44 Dmitri’s supporters even used spiritualism: The Paris police were not fooled, noting in Dmitri’s file: “The main Russian group meets at Auteuil under the pretext of doing experiments in spiritism. An undercover police commissioner attended one of these séances, posing as an expert spiritualist.” Paris police archives.
45 favorite texts, the Bhagavad Gita: Fiemeyer and Palasse-Labrunie, Intimate Chanel, 47.
46 “the talismans of poor children”: Delay, 90.
47 “Without symbols there was nothing”: Fiemeyer and Palasse-Labrunie, Intimate Chanel, 60.
48 signs that conferred social power: Anthropologist Clifford Geertz explains the phenomenon of charismatic outsiders thus: “This is the paradox of charisma: that though it is rooted in the sense of being near to the heart of things, of being caught up in the realm of the serious … [of] those who dominate social affairs … its most flamboyant expressions tend to appear among people at some distance from the center, indeed often enough at a rather enormous distance, who want very much to be closer.” Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 143.
49 “Where is the equivalent”: Bourdieu chose Chanel herself as his prime example of this near-religious process of transubstantiation:
Take a supermarket perfume at 3 francs; the label makes it a Chanel perfume worth 30 francs.… [It is] now transmuted economically and symbolically. The creator’s signature is a mark that changes … the social nature of an object … what is involved is not the rarity of the product, but the rarity of the producer. What makes the value, the magic, of the label is the collusion of all the agents of the system of production of sacred goods. This collusion is, of course, perfectly unconscious.… Between Chanel and her label, there is a whole system, which Chanel understands better than anyone, and at the same time less well than anyone.
Pierre Bourdieu, Sociology in Question, trans. Richard Nice (1974; repr., London: SAGE Publications, 1993), 132–38.
50 former governor of the Crimea: Her employee logs show how valuable the Russian models were in particular—their salaries were often distinctly higher than those of the other models. Russian women’s names start appearing in Chanel’s employee records as of 1921 and many stayed in her employ long after the affair with Dmitri had ended. Conservatoire Chanel, employee register.
51 a miniature Alexander Palace: Delay, 113.
52 “Grand duchesses did my knitting”: Quoted in Delay, 58. Women’s Wear Daily reported on the Russian noblewomen working in textiles for Chanel, and the splash their designs were making: “The elaborately patterned jerseys which the Countess Orloff Davidoff makes for Chanel are immensely popular at Le Touquet. One of these, which attracted wide attention, is soft lemon in color, patterned in a darker green and has a collar and bindings of plain crepe to match the color of the finely pleated skirt.… Two piece coat and skirt costumes constructed of beige color wool with military braidings are also very much in evidence.” “Sportswear Notes from Abroad,” Women’s Wear Daily, August 14, 1923, 3.
53 “One does not wear jewelry”: Coco Chanel interviewed by Jacques Chazot, Dim Dam Dom television program, 1968. Democracy notwithstanding, Chanel would take pleasure all her life in trotting out her Roman
ov jewels to impress visitors: “All the good things in Chanel’s life, though, have come from men.… The Grand Duke Dmitri of Russia hung such lavish jewels around her neck that when she opens her jewel box and spills them on a table to show friends, as she sometimes does, they can hardly believe they are real.” Eugenia Sheppard, “Chanel for Men,” Harper’s Bazaar, December 1969, 158.
54 around its most lucrative product: Tilar Mazzeo is sure of this earlier date for the creation of Chanel No. 5. Tilar Mazzeo, The Secret of Chanel No. 5: The Intimate History of the World’s Most Famous Perfume (New York: HarperCollins, 2010). Lisa Chaney writes, “Whatever has been written or said to the contrary, it is not actually known how or when Gabrielle Chanel met the gifted young perfumer Ernest Beaux. Even more significantly, no one really knows exactly when Chanel No. 5 was created.” Chaney, 183.
55 former perfumer to the tsars: Ernest Beaux would serve as technical director of Parfums Chanel from 1924 to 1954.
56 “In the lily of the valley”: Quoted in Mazzeo, 77.
57 “I don’t want hints of roses”: Quoted in Madsen, 133.
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