The Glitter and the Gold

Read The Glitter and the Gold Storyline:

] Only one American woman could have written this book. Living through the end of the Victorian Age until December 6, 1964, Consuelo Balsan looks back on an era of extraordinary historical interest, on friendships with celebrated persons and on a lost world of distinction and privilege in which she played a leading part. Intimately, wittily, and with disenchanted affection, she writes of New York society and of its personalities in the eighties and nineties, the golden years of the original "400." She recalls their lavish entertainments, the extraordinary "period" houses they built on Fifth Avenue, the country places in Newport and on Long Island to which they moved at the season's end and the yachts in which they roamed about the world. It was a time when young ladies were strictly brought up by parents who had but one object in mind—a great marriage. Disinclined to follow their views, she regards as the bravest act of her luxurious but strict upbringing her deep objection to her mother's decision to marry her to the ninth Duke of Marlborough. Nonetheless filial discipline obliged her to give way to her mother's will. Consuelo Vanderbilt was only eighteen when she became the Duchess of Marlborough, the heroine of the most discussed and publicized international marriage of the end of the century, which made her the mistress of Blenheim Palace, one of the most splendid private residences in England. She describes her complex duties as hostess to such great persons as the Prince and Princess of Wales, the German Emperor, Kino Carlos of Portugal, Queen Marie of Roumania and many other notabilities of the time. She recalls the brilliance of the London season, its grand receptions and balls, the afternoons when fashionable society drove in Hyde Park. And, after such pleasures, she remembers those days in the Houses of Parliament when she listened to such orators as Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, Arthur Balfour and the young Winston Churchill debate the politics of the day. Further afield, she describes the splendor of the courts of St. Petersburg and Vienna —the swan songs of the Romanoffs and of the Hapsburgs—as well as the shrill gaiety of the international world at Monte Carlo. Finally, after describing her divorce from the Duke of Marlborough, she relates the happy history of her years in France as the wife of Colonel Jacques Balsan, during which she saw much of the great writers, artists, and statesmen of the time. These years came to a moving close when the Germans invaded France in the spring of 1940. In these recollections Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan tells her story, candidly and objectively. She recreates, in authentic, amused and amusing detail, a world which has long since come to an end, but which still has the power to fascinate those who never knew it. Furthermore, she is able to discriminate, for her readers and for herself, the difference between its glitter and its gold. EXTRAS: an introduction added in 2011 written by her granddaughter, Serena Russell Balfour; over 50 black and white and color illustrations; and the Vanderbilt Family Tree.