American Lady : The Life of Susan Mary Alsop (9781101601167) (24 page)

I will never forget the London spring of 2009, during which I worked in Lord Norwich’s library and in the house of his daughter, my friend Artemis Cooper. It was thanks to them, and through the letters they allowed me to read, that I got to know Susan Mary as a young woman in love. I hope that John Julius and Molly Norwich and Artemis and Antony Beevor find in these words the expression of my profound gratitude. I would also like to thank Lord and Lady Thomas, who helped me to understand an important time in Susan Mary’s life.

My friends also took part in this project. Sybil d’Origny went with me to Newport, Rhode Island, and introduced me to many of her American cousins and friends; Charlotte Mosley put her library at my disposal. I owe them both a great deal. It is also a pleasure to thank François Stasse, Denis Bourgeois, Thierry Tuot, Pierre Morel, and Hélène Vestur for their advice and support.

It was important for me to know the places where Susan Mary once lived. Thanks to Irene Danilovich, I was able to visit the house in Georgetown where Susan Mary lived during her marriage to Joe Alsop. Aniela visited the house in Northeast Harbor during a stay in Maine with Malcolm and Pamela Peabody; the late Mr. and Mrs. David Ridgely Carter showed me their lovely house in Senlis. Thanks to Lady Westmacott, wife of Sir Peter Westmacott, former British ambassador to France and present ambassador to
the United States, and to the erudite Ben Newick, I was able to see the British ambassador’s residence in Paris as I had never seen it before. I am very grateful to both of them.

Aniela and I would also like to thank the following friends, family, and relations of Susan Mary Alsop for having spoken with us or provided us with source material:

In the United States: Patricia Alsop, Katharine Jay Bacon, Olivier Bernier, William McCormick Blair Jr. and Deeda Blair, Sylvia Blake, Avis Bohlen, Benjamin Bradlee, Rob Brown, Thomas and Constance Bruce, William Buell, Mabel Brandon Cabot, Marion Oates Charles, Todd Davis, Amanda Downes, Frederick Eberstadt, Kay Evans, Frances FitzGerald, Alfred and Pie Friendly, Guido Goldman, Cynthia Helms, Jane Stanton Hitchcock, James Hoagland, Nancy Hoppin, Maisie Houghton, John Peters Irelan, Yves-André Istel, Rhoda Kraft, Walter Lippincott, James G. Lowenstein, Lucy Moorhead, Timothy Mortimer, John Newhouse, Paige Rense Nolan, Deedy Ogden, Roger Pasquier, Dallas Pell, Nuala Pell, Ann Pincus, Trevor Potter, Dr. Christina Puchalski, Nancy Pyne, Sally Quinn, Rudolph Rauch, Susan Rauch, Alexandra Schlesinger, Caroline Seebohm, Sally Bedell Smith, Elizabeth Stevens, James Wadsworth Symington, Mario d’Urso, Jan Wentworth, Janet Whitehouse, Sheldon Whitehouse, Leon Wieseltier, Elizabeth Winthrop, Frank G. Wisner II and Christine Wisner, and Corinne Zimmermann.

In Great Britain: Lady Berlin, Lady Camrose, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, Sir Frank and the late Lady Katherine Giles, Mrs. H. J. Heinz, the late Sir Nicholas Henderson, Sir Michael Pakenham, and Lord Weidenfeld.

In France: Ambassador Benoît d’Aboville, Mrs. Jacques Andréani, Mrs. Jacques de Beaumarchais, Jean-Pierre de Beaumarchais, Sylvain Bellenger, Georges Berthoin, Celestine Bohlen, Bobby Bordeaux-Groult, the late Comtesse Diane de Castellane, Charles de Croisset, Béatrice de Durfort, Anne-Marie de Ganay, the Marquise de Ganay, Pierre Hassner, the Duc de Lorge, Jean-Claude Meyer, Bernard Minoret, the late Duc de Mouchy, Nelly Munthe, Ivan Nabokov, Victoria de Navacelle, Yvan de Navacelle, the Duc and Duchesse de Noailles, William Pfaff, Anne de Rougemont, Nicole Salinger, and Bertrand du Vignaud.

In Italy: Gemma Pozza.

My sister and I would also like to thank all those who offered us advice or lent us books during our research: Marie-Françoise Audouard, Charles Bremner, Malcolm Byrne, Irène Chardon, Florence Coupry, James Davison, Janice Frey, Peter Halban, Professor Gregg Herken, Basil Katz, Marc Lambron, Sarah de Lencquesaing, Charles McGettigan, Michael Mallon, the late Helen Marx, Claire de Montesquiou, Beverly Montgomery, Candice Nancel, Elena Prentice, Elaine Sciolino, Alex Tancredi, Charles Trueheart, Hubert Védrine, and, of course, Stanislas, Jean-Rodolphe, Donatella, and Alexandra Vilgrain.

My mother was an eagle-eyed reader and translated Argentine newspaper articles for me. I would like to thank her warmly as well as my mother-in-law, who shared her Washington memories of Susan Mary with Aniela and with me.

Thank you, Gilles, for listening to me tell a story evening after evening for an entire year, a story that he now knows as well as I do.

I am also very grateful to Mr. Jean-Marc Sauvé, the vice president of the French Conseil d’État, and to presidents Bernard
Stirn, Pierre-François Racine, and Edmond Honorat, as well as to Mr. Christophe Devys for making it possible to bring this project to fruition.

This book would not have been done without my sister, Aniela. Her understanding of the United States and her intimate knowledge of Susan Mary were essential to me. I thank her from the bottom of my heart.

Finally, I would like to thank my editors at Robert Laffont, Malcy Ozannat and Dorothée Cunéo, who gave me the idea to write this book in the first place; Benita Edzard and Gregory Messina, who launched it on its transatlantic journey; Kathryn Court, who decided to publish it; Christopher Murray, who translated it; and Tara Singh, who watched over it at Viking.

III. PARIS

1
.  Susan Mary Alsop,
To Marietta from Paris, 1945–1960
(New York: Doubleday, 1975), 9. (Hereafter,
Marietta
.)

2
.  Adapted from
Marietta,
23.

3
.  
Marietta,
31.

4
.  
Marietta,
61.

5
.  
Marietta,
33.

6
.  Adapted from
Marietta,
34–35.

IV. AFFAIRS OF THE HEART

1
.  Jean Cocteau,
Journal, 1942–1945,
ed. Jean Touzot (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), 597.

2
.  As cited in Diana Cooper,
Autobiography
(Salisbury, United Kingdom: Michael Russel, 1979), 730.

3
.  
Marietta,
64.

4
.  
Marietta,
83.

5
.  Duff Cooper,
The Duff Cooper Diaries,
ed. and introduced by John Julius Norwich (London: Phoenix, 2006), 436.

6
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, April 23, 1947. All letters from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper come from the Cooper family archives. All other letters come from the Patten family archives, except when noted otherwise.

7
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, April 29, 1947.

8
.  Ibid.

9
.  Cooper,
Duff Cooper Diaries,
417.
Copain
(pal) is in French in the original.

10
.  Cocteau,
Journal, 1942–1945,
620.

11
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, May 20, 1947.

12
.  Cooper,
Duff Cooper Diaries,
438.

13
.  Duff Cooper’s unpublished diary, July 6, 1947.

14
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, September 24, 1947.

15
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, June 30, 1947.

16
.  The quote means “Tonight I love you too much to talk to you of love.” (This quote is from a poem by Paul Géraldy.)

17
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, July 4, 1947.

18
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, May 15, 1947.

19
.  Cooper,
Duff Cooper Diaries,
449–50.

20
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, October 8, 1947.

21
.  Duff Cooper’s unpublished diary, October 15, 1947.

22
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, May 26, 1947.
Frondeurs
are “troublemakers.”

V. THE AGE OF SERENITY

1
.  Duff Cooper’s unpublished diary.

2
.  Cooper,
Duff Cooper Diaries,
460.

3
.  Nancy Mitford,
The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh,
ed. Charlotte Mosley (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996), 92.

4
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, July 5, 1948. Georges Bidault and Jules Moch were the minister of foreign affairs and the minister of the interior, respectively, in Robert Schuman’s cabinet from November 1947 to July 1948.

5
.  Duff Cooper’s unpublished diary, July 7, 1948.

6
.  Duff Cooper’s unpublished diary, July 13, 1948.

7
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, October 26, 1948.

8
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, August 15, 1948.

9
.  Nancy Mitford,
Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh,
114–15.

10
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, August 25, 1948.

11
.  
Marietta,
140.

12
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, March 2, 1949.

13
.  
Marietta,
136.

14
.  Letter from Bill Patten to Susan Mary, March 4, 1949.

15
.  Nancy Mitford,
The Blessing,
in
The Nancy Mitford Omnibus
(London: Penguin, 2001), 388.

16
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, March 3, 1949.

17
.  Duff Cooper’s unpublished diary, March 2, 1950.

18
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, March 3, 1950.

19
.  Duff Cooper,
Duff Cooper Diaries,
473.

20
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, March 9, 1949.

21
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, March 20, 1950.

22
.  Lord Granville, an English diplomat, had a long affair, mostly but not exclusively epistolary, with Lady Bessborough at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

23
.  Selina Hastings,
Nancy Mitford
(London: Papermac, 1986), 161.

24
.  Mitford,
The Blessing,
388.

25
.  Nancy Mitford,
Don’t Tell Alfred, in The Nancy Mitford Omnibus,
517.

26
.  Mitford,
Don’t Tell Alfred,
519.

27
.  Mitford,
Don’t Tell Alfred,
520.

28
.  Mitford,
Don’t Tell Alfred,
575.

29
.  Mitford,
Don’t Tell Alfred,
576.

30
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, July 11, 1947.

31
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Gladwyn Jebb, August 24, 1960.

32
.  
Marietta,
176.

33
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, April 10, 1951.

34
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, July 16, 1950.

35
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, July 11, 1950.

36
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Louise de Rougemont, August 30, 1950, Rougemont family archives. (In French in the original.)

37
.  
Marietta,
179.

38
.  
Marietta,
183.

39
.  Paul Morand,
Venises
(Paris: Gallimard, 1971), 160.

40
.  Jean Cocteau,
Le Passé défini,
vol. I,
1951–1952
(Paris: Gallimard, 1983), 35.

41
.  Edmond was her butler.

42
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, December 26, 1951.

VI. WHEN SHADOWS FALL

1
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, July 8, 1953. (In French in the original.)

2
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, August 10, 1952.

3
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, November 25, 1950.

4
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, July 2, 1950.

5
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Duff Cooper, September 8, 1952.

6
.  Nancy Mitford,
Love from Nancy: The Letters of Nancy Mitford,
ed. Charlotte Mosley (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993), 359.

7
.  Cited in Janet Flanner,
Paris Journal, 1944–1955
(San Diego, Calif.: Harvest Books, 1988), 118.

8
.  Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.

9
.  
Marietta,
232.

10
.  
Marietta,
246.

11
.  
Marietta,
247.

12
.  
Marietta,
178.

13
.  
Marietta,
283.

14
.  Letter from Nancy Mitford to her sister Jessica in
The Mitfords, Letters Between Six Sisters,
ed. Charlotte Mosley (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 291.

15
.  
Marietta,
296.

16
.  Adapted from
Marietta,
327.

17
.  Letter from Bill Patten to Susan Mary, June 30, 1959.

18
.  Letter from Bill Patten to Susan Mary, July 5, 1959.

19
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Gladwyn Jebb, August 24, 1959.

20
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Gladwyn Jebb, August 15, 1959.

21
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Gladwyn Jebb, August 7, 1959.

22
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Gladwyn Jebb, August 3, 1959.

23
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Gladwyn Jebb, August 24, 1959.

24
.  Ibid.

25
.  Ibid.

26
.  
Marietta,
348.

27
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Gladwyn Jebb, April 6, 1960.

28
.  Cited in a letter from Susan Mary to Gladwyn Jebb, March 30, 1960.

29
.  Letter from Nancy Mitford to Susan Mary, October 30, 1960.

30
.  Letter from Susan Mary to Gladwyn Jebb, June 28, 1960.

VII. AT THE COURT OF KING JACK

1
.  “I’m back from the States—full of stories about the court of King Jack at Washington.” Letter from Diana Cooper to Evelyn Waugh, March 15, 1963, in
Mr. Wu and Mrs. Stitch: The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and Diana Cooper,
ed. Artemis Cooper (London: Sceptre, 1992), 398.