Herzog II

Since posting reference 1 about an unusual climber called Maurice Herzog, I have been reading, off and on, a fictionalised version of the childhood of one of his daughters, Félicité. Who, it seems, had a very rum upbringing. I also find her French quite difficult so I am now on a second reading, hoping that a bit more of it will get through.

This morning I share a royal snippet.

It seems that her maternal grandparents were the Duke and Duchess of Brissac, the French keeping all that kind of thing up, despite aristocrats having been abolished by the revolution, despite their having no official standing. The Duchess in question quite possibly being the lady above turned up by Google, otherwise May Schneider, from a family in trade who brought in the gold which was needed to re-gild her new name - which had got a bit tarnished.

It further seems that at some point, possibly in the 1960's, our Queen paid them a visit at their winter residence at Rambouillet, on the southwestern outskirts of Paris. We get a splendid vignette of the Queen and her entourage tramping across the lawns and making a bit of a mess of them with their escarpins, with this last being a word for light, open shoes, shoes which I assumed from the context to have high heels. Just the thing for delicate winter lawns.

By way of compensation, the Queen gives her hosts a nicely framed and signed photograph of herself, photographs of which one supposes it is the job of one of her entourage to have a ready supply. It seems that the Queen had the knack of being very gracious about such gifts, striking a nice balance between solemnity and fun. This gift then sat on the mantlepiece, or perhaps the grand piano, gathering dust, for the next fifty years.

PS 1: the Duke and his Duchess were also collaborators during the war, like many of their kind. But I shall come back to that when I noticed the book properly.

PS 2: later: according to Google image search: 'Boutet de Monvel earned much of his contemporary fame for his photorealistic society portraits. The chic Duchesse de Brissac, née armaments heiress Marie-Zélie Schneider, sat for the artist in 1945 at his Paris home wearing a silk dress and emeralds and leaning against a lacquered cabinet. The work’s estimate is $16,500 to $21,900'.

Reference 1: psmv4: Getting to the top.

Reference 2: Un Héros – Félicité Herzog – 2012.