We had been invited to the White House by the Clintons for a dinner in honour of my cousins, the kings of Spain. Before supper we entered a vast hall. A lady who was accompanying us said: “It is in this very room that I saw the coffin of President Kennedy” “And before that,” added…
As usual, I was spending this Saturday morning in New York, going round auction halls. On Christie’s Park Avenue, one can find magnificent jewellery on display. My friend François, one of the world’s greatest experts in the field, invited me to follow him into his office. He knew that I was an enthusiast and handed…
Randolph Hearst was the most formidable press tycoon. As illustrated by Orson Wells in “Citizen Kane”, he was a killer, a ruthless businessman, a conqueror that backed down for nothing. North of Los Angeles, he built a most extravagant castle in San Simeon, amongst the green hills. The façade was that of a Mexican cathedral,…
Mabel Dodge was the wealthy wife of the automobile manufacturer of the same name. In the 1930s, she had an extraordinary villa built in New Mexico on the High Plateaux in the city of Taos. This paradise attracted a great many eccentric artists and characters. Mabel Dodge received all who thought and created, notably D….
His name was Francis Bannerman. He had come to the United States from his native Scotland when he was three years old and he and his family lived in Brooklyn. He worked in trade. He had specialized in purchasing American army surplus. The American Civil War and then the Cuban war had indeed left behind…
Behind the hotel, which had once been the villa of Mabel Dodge in Taos, lay a vast prairie, which stretched out to the horizon where it met a range of lofty mountains. I asked the headmistress, the sharp-witted lady with the shaven head, how we could get onto the prairie to take a walk. “You…
The Beresford is one of the most magnificent buildings in New York City on Central Park West. That is where we settled when we arrived from Europe: in a large apartment with spacious, high-ceilinged rooms. It was light-filled, with a splendid view of the park. Marina, myself, and our two daughters were very happy there….
Briskly, he walks through the French Quarters, crosses Jackson Square, turns around the Saint Louis Cathedral and reaches the gates of the cemetery bearing the same name. Now, he is no longer in a hurry. He takes his time to dawdle amongst the graves, looking for the one on which to lie. The moon, shining…
As luck would have it, Marie Laveau soon after met the love of her life, Christophe Duminy de Glapion. She would never marry him, for the simple reason that he was white and that the law of the time forbade such an union, but they had many children – fifteen according to legend! In any…
Marie Laveau was born in 1794, baptised and registered at the parish. Her origins remain, truth be told, rather murky: in her white and black blood mixed. It was even suspected that she had Native American blood. Some even said she was the daughter of a white nobleman and a black slave. In 1819, as…