A Dangerous Woman

by Susan Ronald

  In 1932, Florence met two women who would become central to her life. The Breton-born Magdeleine Homo, a former ice-skating star, met Florence at the ice rink in Paris and was invited to Florence’s mansion on rue Albérique-Magnard for tea. After some negotiation and a second meeting, Homo agreed to become Florence’s personal secretary. Within a few months, Frank poached Homo from his wife, allegedly without her consent.4

  The second woman, Madeleine Manigler, attended Florence’s 1932 Christmas bash at the George V Hotel, along with the great and the notable, not to mention the naughty, like her friend of long standing, Jean Cocteau. Madeleine Manigler was the guest of Florence’s art dealer, Daniel Wildenstein. Florence, magnificent in her white, elegant, and simple Chanel gown, greeted Manigler as if she had been as old a friend as Wildenstein. Manigler, from Auvergne, was an art expert in her own right, who, like Wildenstein, had a passion for the artist Claude Monet. She was slim, well dressed, and quite pretty. In a flash, the two women became close—just how close has been a matter of some speculation for years. Manigler was quick-witted like Florence, and loved nothing better than sparring with words.

  Their attraction to each other was instantaneous. Florence hated subservient and obsequious behavior in the people she wanted to keep at her side. Manigler would withstand the growing tyrannical streak Florence had begun to display, and could parry the millionairess’s barbs with aplomb. After all, Manigler dealt with many wealthy and haughty collectors, as well as her boss, Daniel Wildenstein. Soon after, Manigler accompanied Florence on buying trips for Impressionist art, and helped solidify Daniel Wildenstein’s hold over Florence’s acquisitions. Still, there were more personal reasons for their “friendship.”

  Now in her mid-thirties, Florence had singularly failed to have made any close female friendships, aside from her childhood friend, Cécile Tellier. There could, naturally, be dozens of reasons for this empty space in her life, especially given Florence’s man-eating reputation. Yet there is one explanation that should be explored briefly, given Madeleine’s sexual preferences. By the beginning of 1934, Madeleine Manigler seemingly usurped Cécile’s position and became Florence’s closest friend in every way. This did not mean, however, that Florence was less attached to Cécile, who was, after all, Berthe Lacaze’s paid companion. There was talk, but Florence waved it aside. She would do what she wished, with whom she wished, when she wished. More to the point, in society there was always “talk.”

  Considering the statement made by Florence that “in the Thirties, everybody slept with everybody else. It was fun. It was practical…” easily led those who heard her to believe that perhaps Florence was alluding to her own latent bisexuality. Given who she admired in le Tout-Paris as a younger woman, and how hard she had to fight for recognition in the world to which she hungered to belong, her possible bisexuality could have stemmed, too, as the natural extension of her burning ambitions. It is feasible that her new inseparable companion, Madeleine Manigler, provided Florence with a discreet outlet for any such urges she may have had. In the wild thirties in France, homosexuality and lesbianism were accepted. For Frank, however, bisexuality was anathema, and the very thought that his wife could sleep with women was the final straw. Later, Florence herself dated their estrangement as husband and wife to this period. Still, their business partnership and their public lives would continue as before. It was the most civilized and practical solution for both parties. After all, Frank was not in good enough health to go through another acrimonious divorce, particularly if Florence revealed the unpalatable reasons for his illness. Florence helped Frank pursue his own interests, as he would allow her to follow her own without recrimination. It was a very European arrangement.

  Professionally, Florence oversaw the development of the Gould hotel and casino empire in France. Yet despite her efforts, she and Frank lacked a northern presence in their property portfolio in or near Deauville, which still attracted a sizable wealthy clientele. Then, after long negotiations, a fabulous newsworthy location became available. The Goulds announced their purchase of a resort town a mere stone’s throw from the ever-chic Deauville. Their announcement of the acquisition of most of the town of Granville, along with every hotel in it, was reported by the Associated Press with Frank Gould quoted as wanting to develop one of the “most luxurious baccarat palaces in the world” and that the one at Granville would cost around $1 million.5 Their intention was clear: They wanted to be the largest luxury hotel and casino owners in France.

  * * *

  Back at SBM, Léon thundered on. Someone or something had to stop Gould and his Madison Avenue men from their negative publicity against Monaco, or the casino in Monte Carlo would go under. Gould’s casinos were bigger, bolder, and more beautiful than the Monte Carlo casino. The Goulds’ connections, particularly through Florence’s efforts with le Tout-Paris and the beau monde equaled—if not bettered—Monte Carlo’s. Her remarkable talent for making “friends” among the world’s upper crust was quite simply unparalleled. Léon lacked her radiant smile and glamour. Prince Louis, Monaco’s reigning monarch, was an aging, seemingly uninteresting figure.

  That Monte Carlo might fail was an unconscionable thought. Prince Louis was equally unimpressed with the principality’s slide from grace in the public eye. The prince’s income was wholly dependent on the success of SBM and the casinos. He was booed and jeered when he made public appearances. Something simply had to be done, he lamented. After some considerable reflection, Léon resolved to rid his prince of this turbulent American, his drop-dead-gorgeous wife, and their supersized casinos. Anonymous reports written to the police at the Sûreté’s Deuxième and Septième Bureaus that the Goulds weren’t declaring all their income were taken seriously. Initially, the complaints served only to highlight that every casino in the Nice area filed its annual licenses and renewals requests far too late, leading the police to suspect that none of them declared their proper income.6

  That said, more serious charges were levied against the Goulds. They were “purposefully” withholding their income statements and “city contribution” payments for the casino. The Septième Bureau complained that it was impossible for them to audit the Gould establishments for malfeasance, breach of their license, or other illegal activities—and be expected to grant the new annual license in a timely manner. Unless the Palais de la Méditerranée cleaned up its act, the Septième Bureau would have to close it down. At the end of the day, Baudoin prevailed, and a penalty was agreed on instead for their late filing. Yet Baudoin failed to make the payments on time, merely halving them or rescheduling them unilaterally. Amazingly, the Gould’s “Venetian Palace” remained open.7 What more could Léon do?

  * * *

  Predictably, in those times of greatest austerity, real disaster struck. The French government decided to raise a national tax on all baccarat gambling to help with its poor treasury receipts. Overnight, the big “bet a million” games took flight to Monte Carlo and San Remo in Italy. Even the Greeks, headed by Zographos, quit the French casinos overnight to avoid the additional two percent tax on their profits. Even worse, the Greeks announced that they would refuse to hold an “open bank” against the houses of the Riviera for the winter season of 1932–1933 and beyond, if the government did not climb down over the extortionate taxes. Without the thousands that came to watch the high-stakes gamblers, and play at chemin-de-fer, too (where the house made its greatest profits), all French casinos would suffer sudden death. The Goulds’ Palais de la Méditerranée casino would be among the hardest hit by the high rollers moving elsewhere.8

  Had Prince Louis whispered in the French government’s ear? Probably not. The government of the Third Republic viewed itself as virtuous, if left-wing. Then, as now, it was the need for cash that drove any form of taxation on the rich or frivolous that would meet with broad public approval.

  By November 1933, the Palais de la Méditerranée was running at a declared loss for the year of 3 million francs because of a combination of the
casino war and absent American-dollar visitors. Frank’s Swiss son-in-law, married to his daughter Dorothy, claimed the losses were more like 15 million francs. It seemed, too, that Baudoin was asking the Goulds to reduce his 3.2-million-franc lease at the Juan-les-Pins casino in what the local papers called its “rocambolesque,” or fantastic, failure. The hotel the Goulds developed in the Alps above Nice at Breuil was an abysmal failure, too. Who wanted to ski in the morning, swim in the Mediterranean in the afternoon, and gamble all night amid this Great Depression, as the Goulds’ advertising posters enthusiastically invited?

  To boot, there were complaints to the Nice mayor’s office that the employee profile at the Palais de la Méditerranée was not contractually correct. Seventy-five percent of all employees had to be French, as did the ownership of the casino. Since Frank and Florence were still the majority owners, they seemed to be thumbing their noses at the authorities. Irrespective of Frank’s desire for Florence to play the part of the “dual national,” the government classed her as “American by marriage.”* Then, too, there were those 80,000 francs in “city contributions” overdue since February 1933 that Baudoin had rescheduled for payment with interest at the end of November.9 The only problem was that Frank Gould, as the primary owner, would have to pay the money from his personal pocket, or borrow it from some lending institution, since the hotel and casino were in the red. The debt would need to be paid no later than the date the hotel would reopen for the winter season—November 25.

  As Frank and Florence pondered the various ramifications, quite unexpectedly on the blustery night before the opening, a fire broke out in their beautiful casino and hotel. What hadn’t been destroyed by fire was ruined by the firemen’s hoses. Were the Goulds behind it? Or was it SBM? The timing appeared to be extremely fortuitous for either party in the eyes of the press, and groundless speculation grew. Frank, though gutted, put on a brave face. Surely the city of Nice could wait for their back “city contribution” until the insurers paid out?

  The damage, covered by forty insurance companies, was thought to be around $700,000. Officials immediately suspected arson, since the fire brigade reported that three fires broke out simultaneously in three separate locations: the hotel restaurant, casino, and kitchen. Eyewitnesses claimed that the suspected arsonist made his “quick” getaway on bicycle. The arsonist—who many claimed was a disgruntled croupier—was never caught.

  Frank immediately put out a press statement. His palace that “even Caesar would never have built” would rise again from the ashes. The debt to the city would be paid forthwith. To alienate the mayor’s office further would be reckless. Yet Frank’s next task was to persuade the insurers that neither he nor Florence had anything to do with the blaze. A diplomatic decision was made by the police, with the help of the mayor’s office, to drop any further investigation, since the two most suspected parties were either the Goulds or SBM.10 Either way, the truth was bad for business. So the thorny question remained for the insurers: Would they or wouldn’t they pay out?

  * * *

  The Goulds’ problems were only beginning. France was gripped by the greatest scandal of its “virtuous” Third Republic—the Stavisky Affair. Florence’s friendship with Mrs. Sacha Stavisky—the actress Arletty—had come into focus at the highest levels of government at precisely the same time as the Palais de la Méditerranée fire. Sacha Stavisky, also known as Serge Alexandre, had been running the most flagrant, fraudulent pyramid scheme to date, selling worthless bonds in the municipal credit institutions of Orléans and Bayonne, backed by nothing but thin air. He was also an inveterate gambler who had been banned from all casinos in the country, since these were the most obvious places for him to cheat and launder dirty money. Yet whenever he was on the Riviera, he made a point of gambling in the Goulds’ casinos. Did Florence know what Stavisky was up to? If she did, perhaps she thought that the fire was a sign that Lady Luck was smiling down on them? After all, the casino’s records were burned to cinders in the conflagration, too.

  16

  SCANDAL, AMERICA, AND SEPARATE LIVES

  I have slept with the Dear Lord, and the Dear Lord loves me.

  —FLORENCE GOULD

  Florence truly believed that the Lord God was personally watching over her, making her rich and responding to her every prayer. The Heavenly Father was considered by Florence as her Grand Protector—even her Great Banker—an Eternal Machine designed to print dollars on her behalf. It was He, she believed, who had looked after her and Frank with the casino and hotel fire. When it came to the Stavisky scandal, He created her good fortune in keeping her investments out of the public eye.

  The financial situation in France was worsened by government volatility. The 1932 elections created a coalition of the left, sometimes called the second Cartel des Gauches. The Radical Socialists* in the coalition were led by Édouard Daladier for a second time in January 1934, with the SFIO socialists (Worker’s International Party) being the other cogoverning partner. Maurice Thorez, leader of the French Communist Party, would soon hold the power of “kingmaker” on the left. Rampant capitalists like Frank and Florence were increasingly in bad odor.

  The main problem politicians faced was the economy. Neither the leftist coalition nor the right could agree on the appropriate program to save the nation from bankruptcy, much less find the money to modernize labor laws to twentieth-century standards or agree on a national budget. In other words, faced with the necessity to tighten belts, the French parliamentarians were at daggers drawn. Between December 1932 and February 1934, there were six French premiers leading six different governments. In the four years between June 1932 and June 1936, France would have twelve prime ministers. Instability reigned.1 The last government to fall was that of Édouard Daladier on February 7, 1934, due to the organized right-wing riots in Paris caused by the Stavisky scandal. While Florence was celebrating Christmas Eve in Paris only six weeks earlier, the scandal finally broke.

  The reactionary French author Robert Brasillach summed up the mood of the country well. “The last months of 1933 had shrouded France in a strange twilight of murder,” he wrote in Notre avant-guerre. “One sign in the darkness, toward Christmas, the Lagny rail catastrophe, which left two hundred dead.… And we learned in a few lines, in the papers, that a humdrum swindle implicated the Crédit Municipale of Bayonne.”2

  * * *

  The humdrum swindler was Mendl, or Michael “Sacha” Stavisky, or Serge Alexandre as he became known after his first stint in prison in 1926. He was dubbed “Stavisky Don Juan” by Paris-Soir after his first acquittal for a 6-million-franc stock fraud in 1923. The trial took place shortly after the Ukrainian-born Stavisky became a French citizen. Journalists, many of whom were often aspiring crime novelists, like Georges Simenon, elevated the common swindler to romantic status. The right-wing Le Journal asked its readers if Stavisky was “Don Juan or Rasputin?” conjuring up the images of the French gentleman thief Arsène Lupin who consistently outwitted the bungling police.3 Stavisky’s film-idol wife, known to her adoring public as “Arletty,” but called Arlette by her friends, was born in 1898 as Léonie Marie Julie Bathiat.

  Known for her glamour, as a model for Coco Chanel, and, more recently, an actress with a sumptuous lifestyle on the Riviera and in Biarritz, Arletty was a former childhood classmate of Florence Lacaze Gould’s from the Cours Dupanloup.4 When Stavisky was arrested again at the end of 1926, Arletty was heavily pregnant with their son Claude. Simenon’s romantic outcry in “The Love Story of Stavisky” about how Stavisky seduced his wife, who was left only with their baby son and her shattered illusions, sold newspapers in the tens of thousands. Although Arletty was never poor, like Florence, there was more than something of a gambler in her that made Stavisky attractive. Arletty loved high and dangerous living: the lifestyle that Stavisky afforded her.

  An inveterate cardsharp, check forger, seller of worthless bonds and glass “jewels,” Stavisky was barred from casinos, including the Goulds’ casinos at Vich
y, Juan-les-Pins, Bagnoles, Granville, and Nice for years. Yet due to Florence’s friendship with Arletty, a blind eye was turned, as it was at other casinos owned by those who were beguiled by Stavisky’s wife. Even more incredibly, for those who were not tempted to admit Stavisky, he miraculously produced a laissez-passer from the Sûreté Générale with the blessing of his former arresting officer, whose testimony had put him in La Santé Prison in the first place.5 On one such occasion at the Ambassadeurs Casino in Cannes, Stavisky sat at the baccarat table on a Sunday in January 1932, playing with marked cards. The Greek professional gambler, Zographos, saw what Stavisky was doing, but by the time the policeman overseeing the action in the gambling parlor investigated, Stavisky had walked away with 270,000 francs.6 With the help of the police and local officials in Paris and Orléans, Stavisky swindled millions more.

  As the government was in utter disarray, Stavisky, always on the make, looked for ever-greater swindles. He found one in the Crédit Municipale of Bayonne. Similar municipal credit bureaus were dotted around the country, and were often the only means of “banking” available to traders outside of Paris. For some, it was an enhanced pawnbroker’s service. For others, it served as a temporary payday lender. Some businesses used the services for short-term loans.

  Envious, Bayonne’s long-standing mayor, Joseph Garat,* saw no reason why the French Riviera should have three Crédits Municipales when Bayonne had none. When “Serge Alexandre” appeared on the scene in September 1931, Garat was thrilled that his small Basque town was receiving the attention it deserved at long last. The age-old warning “If something seems too good to be true, then it probably is” should have been embossed in gold on Garat’s office door.