The Happy Years (1944-48)

by Cecil Beaton

  Therefore it came as quite an upheaval when someone from de Gaulle’s office suggested I should go, with my camera, on a trip to the Vosges front and watch Churchill and the General inspecting the French troops pursuing the Germans in retreat.

  By now it is a foregone conclusion that the war in France is over, and here in Paris it is already everyone’s wish to try and forget so terrible a subject: even the papers can find it of little news value. But Diana, never one to miss any event, spurred me on to uproot myself. There was no time to organize any rough or warm clothing being sent from home so, wearing everyday clothes, thin shoes, a dark blue overcoat and black Homburg hat, I went off in a blizzard to the railway station.

  The temperature was falling hourly. In the front part of the train were the two leaders with their entourage. The bulk of the long caterpillar was filled with troops while at the back I was herded in with a hundred journalists of many nationalities. It was a gloomy picture that I stared at, in the semi-darkness. The snow falling fast. Every few yards a soldier stood at the salute all along the railway track towards Strasbourg. It was difficult to sleep, and I was haunted by the sight of these young men standing like dummies in their solitary watch all through the night.

  By dawn the snow had covered everything with a pall of silence. Here even sounds of battle were muted. A distant gun was muffled; a single aeroplane droned in the sky; just an occasional clattering arrival of two or three tanks, the purring of a large limousine bringing an important general, and the raucous, throaty commands of some officer and the ensuing clank of steel and stamp of boot.

  I can never understand how it is that decisive battles are so often fought in areas far from the countries at war. Who would have guessed that Germany and England should fight it out in the torrid heat of the Egyptian desert? It took quite an effort of the imagination to realize that the foetid jungle skirmishes which I saw a year ago in Burma, were part of this same war being conducted under grey skies, with frozen mud and snow underfoot.

  It is doubtful if during this whole day more than a handful of the visitors understood the manoeuvres at the edge of these black, leafless woods: certainly no journalist was able to give me any indication of the mysterious comings and goings. We waited in groups: bundled into buses and jeeps; we arrived at a small bomb-damaged town to wait again. Scowling Churchill and disdainful de Gaulle, sitting silently in their automobile, appeared at the head of a cavalcade and soon disappeared. Again in another village we waited. The motorcade appeared again. Churchill and de Gaulle still silent.

  By lunchtime not only my thinly-shod feet, but my legs and entire body had turned to ice. We were now taken to an evacuated chateau of grey stone and gaunt proportions turned into a sort of boarding school in which we were all reduced to the rank of new boys: none of us seemed to know quite where to go, what to do, who to speak to, or if it would be all right to go to the lavatory. De Gaulle arrived with his distinguished visitor. As they passed into their private dining-room the pair still appeared not to be on speaking terms. De Gaulle has par excellence the ‘po’ face of the ‘head-beak’: without a word, but with swollen, upturned nose and blood-hound eyes, he surveys the world around him with utter contempt. The rest of us, almost three hundred soldiers and men, were now taken to our quarters where long trestle tables were laid. Never before has the French art of cooking been better employed. The cassoulet kindled warmth in our veins and gave us the courage of the programme.

  The round continued. Churchill, with stout cigar jutting from his clenched jowl, grimly inspected more troops. Mostly young boys, they were disguised — in American-sent steel helmet and greyish khaki coats — as soldiers. The snowflakes fell gently onto these boys, onto Churchill, onto de Gaulle, and onto the smiling, excited villagers: to them this was a red letter of days. That Churchill himself was among them meant that, after all, they had survived: this seemed a miracle. The children in Balaclava helmets, with adenoids, stood and stared. The aged, fang-toothed old women jumped and laughed and cried in the snow. Then they saw the opportunity to sell their provisions. With transport at a standstill many French villages are suffering from a surplus of home produce. Now the villagers ran out with eggs, butter, pots of jam, and all manner of cheeses. The journalists were their most avid customers. Was it believable that such things could be bought without coupons? I bagged a Brie cheese the size of a farm-cartwheel. It became my most important possession. I nursed it with more care than my films and Rolleiflex: I would not let it out of my sight on the journey back to Paris. (Again those ghostly figures every few yards, lining the railway lines all through the night.) No matter who objected to the aroma I would jettison it out of the window only with my life.

  On my return to the Embassy, having thrown off my wet clothes and thawed out in a bath, I dressed and went out with my high smelling cartwheel to give it to my long-loyal friend at the Vogue photograph studio, Madame Dilé. At the sight of this cheese tears welled up into her large, brown eyes. I don’t think I have ever before enjoyed giving a present as much.

  DIANA ON HER CHILDHOOD

  Flying weather bad: ‘Report back in an hour.’ My delayed return to London was agreeably spent talking to Diana who was having a day in bed without lunch — pottering about barefoot, sorting scraps and wondering why the Embassy ran itself so badly.

  Back in Pauline Borghese’s huge crimson and gold bed, Diana exclaimed: ‘To me, it’s always a shock to hear you all saying “Bébé” to Bébé Bérard because I was always “Baby” — the baby of the family. I was terribly spoilt as it was found that I had some sort of paralysis. The paralysis was discovered when someone came from Sweden and showed us all new exercises, and Baby couldn’t raise her arms above her head, or turn the pages of music in front of her. But Baby had never known anything was wrong. Baby had fallen on her face whenever Baby tripped up and was always covered with scabs, unable to raise her arms to save herself — but it didn’t worry her. English doctors all said the paralysis would creep: my mother was told I had only a certain time to live so I must be denied nothing. A big ground-floor room in Arlington Street was given to me as my bedroom (I wasn’t to walk upstairs). I liked the theatre. That was easy with the Trees owning His Majesty’s, but I wouldn’t go to matinées; I disapproved — I liked the waiting up late. I sat in the box, not allowed to clap. (Lady Tree said I mustn’t clap from the box.) I went to dinner in a hansom: very dangerous — if the horse slipped in the rain you went through the window sure as fate.

  ‘I was always eccentrically dressed — in black satin with wonderful Van Dyke aprons and collars of lace. I didn’t mind that, but I was terribly embarrassed at being made to show off — at having to recite, and play the piano, and come downstairs in my “pinnie”. (Mother liked the reflected lights from the pinafore on the face. We, in the nursery, thought a pinafore was meant only to preserve the dark dress beneath and must be taken off when going in to the grown-ups.) There was always a lot of photography: at Belvoir it was dressing-up for pictures from a huge chest with old Thespian robes in it — kings and queens. We took photographs as the Five Senses — Smelling, Hearing, etcetera, or being very medieval praying in a Gothic chapel, or admiring a hollyhock. We burnt magnesium wire for lighting, and did the magic of developing and printing on POP (daylight paper). The smell of the developing dishes — the thrill of the hypo — the printing frames that fell out of the window! And then we sculpted hands. We put the guests to work and covered their hands with grease and plaster, and then the panic of the moment when the plaster dried quickly — then the breaking — would it set? It never set! Then the dipping in water — and the greased plate... Oh, the greased plate for toffee!

  ‘Mother never stopped finding new doctors. Eventually the paralysis was cured by galvanization — electric jerks. The muscles gradually strengthened — and then Baby had to be educated. But Baby dictated: Baby wouldn’t do mathematics or German. That’s why Baby’s mind — not that it’s been too much of a drawback — is so undisciplined today.
But Baby often marvels that she could have grown up to enjoy even a modicum of success. She can hardly believe that today a woman has sent her some orchids in reply to her writing in pencil refusing to sit for a portrait. She could never believe that she could “get there”. How can it be that now silly, paralysed Baby is a character, a wit — that she is carrying on this conversation in this particular room?’

  GERTRUDE STEIN AND ALICE TOKLAS

  Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas have returned to Paris from their refuge in the mountains near Aix. Gertrude is much thinner and shrunken — Toklas fatter and more hirsute. Alice Toklas said, re difficulties of buying food and other scarce essentials: ‘Nowadays one doesn’t buy with money but with one’s personality.’ She described a scene in the Rue St Augustin when she and Gertrude went to buy vegetables, and suddenly some GIs shouted: ‘Miss Stein, Mr Picasso wants you,’ and Pablo appeared, laughing, and they all got together with the butcher in the street and he gave them extra bits of meat as a celebration.

  Gertrude talks about the hordes of GIs who come to see her and Picasso. ‘Why do they come to us?’ She explains that for some reason she and Pablo stand for humanity: the two of them have always had the courage to fight for, and uphold, the things that they think are important. The problems of contemporary life have got out of hand: that is why so many GIs turn up to seek advice. They want to discuss their difficulties with these two people, not because they are celebrities, but because they are pioneers. One GI, however, was an exception, for he ended his conversation with Gertrude by saying: ‘I think I’ll go off and do a lot of hard work to become a celebrity: it seems so damned practical to be a celebrity.’

  I had heard rumours that Gertrude had become anti-British in her views, and even in front of me she said: ‘The English are so stubborn and haven’t shown enough democratic spirit. The English are always too determined to be governesses. You must internationalize the Ruhr.’ Gertrude has become too much of an authority with an unfailing conviction of her own greatness (‘When I say something I speak with maturity and you think something’), but when she starts telling me that we are too fond of ‘putting kings on thrones’ I realize she is talking a lot of cock. However, one must admit the old girl believes in her own cock!

  Gertrude is still convinced that Francis Rose is today’s greatest English painter, and it is high praise when she says: ‘He paints in the great English tradition!’ I recoiled when she produced his latest offering — a large Le Nainesque peasant. ‘This is a study of violence — that’s why people hate it so. Of course the English critics turn away in dread, but a good picture should take as much courage on the part of the spectator to appreciate it as on the part of the painter to paint it.’

  During the years of cold and shortages Gertrude and Alice became friends with a neighbour at Aix, a simple young man named Pierre Balmain, with a taste for antiques and a natural bent for designing women’s clothes. In fact he made with his own hands heavy tweeds and warm garments for Gertrude and Alice Toklas to wear during the hard winters. Now he has opened a shop in Paris. At his first showing to the Press Gertrude and Alice arrived with their huge dog, ‘Basket’. Gertrude in a tweed skirt, an old cinnamon-coloured sack, and Panama hat, looked like Corot’s self-portrait. Alice, in a long Chinese garment of bright colours with a funny flowered toque, had overtones of the Widow Twankey. Gertrude, seeing the world of fashion assembled, whispered: ‘Little do they know that we are the only people here dressed by Balmain, and it’s just as well for him that they don’t!’

  A TARIFF FOR GUESTS?

  February 3rd

  Sitting next to Louise de Vilmorin at dinner tonight I was saying how extraordinarily infallible people are. Diana plans this party over a week ahead. Notes are sent out, and as a result, fourteen people, seven women and an equal number of men, are sitting around a big formal table. Very few chuck or fall out at the last minute. Even more extraordinary is the fact that in the theatre the same forty people assemble backstage for every performance probably for a year on end. (It is rarely that one reads a programme slip: ‘Owing to indisposition the part of ... will be played at tonight’s performance by ...’) The only difference is that the actors are paid to turn up. ‘That,’ said Louise, ‘is how it should be! We should all be paid for coming to dinner — and we should each have a separate price. The most important guests would receive the highest salary: people would receive their cheques at the placement.’ ‘Would you make me a prix d’amis?’ I asked her. ‘Some people, of course, would cheat by pretending they could command a greater fee than what they received. But some guests could be paid by barter instead of cash: the dentist would be invited instead of having to pay his bill, and the dressmaker too. It would, of course, lead to tragedy. Certain lovers wouldn’t be able to meet: he too poor and unimportant, she prohibitively expensive.’ Louise embroidered the variations on this theme in an amusing way and said: ‘Don’t tell Jean Cocteau — he will be onto the idea in a minute and make a play out of it.’

  BÉBÉ BÉRARD AND THE JACKALS

  British Embassy, Paris

  How the Parisians do enjoy to destroy their favourites! With what relish is a reputation undermined overnight! It seems that Bébé Bérard is the latest martyr of parasites who, without talent of their own, give themselves spurious importance by living off those whom they will reject the moment they can discover a new face on the horizon. Forgotten is the fact that Bébé’s imagination has been an inspiration to hordes who ran after him feeding avidly on the crumbs he threw in their path. Bébé, fat, with buttons bursting, untidy, with his long shaggy beard, opium-dirty fingernails, and dirtier white dog, has for many years now been poised on the highest and most precarious pinnacle of fashionable acclaim. A pupil of Vuillard, and with Degas his master, he has painted some extraordinarily beautiful canvases of peasants, urchins, circus performers and people far removed from the grand world. But much of his time has been taken by the theatre where his work has been about the only original contribution to stage design since Diaghilev’s ballet. In addition Bébé has worked for magazines, done book illustrations, posters, scarves, materials and advertisements. In matters relating to the decorative arts he has become the oracle. Gertrude Stein, while reprimanding him for his frivolities, praised him for being the quintessence of French taste.

  Now the jackals spread the word: ‘Bébé has done no serious painting.’ ‘Bébé’s place in the theatre is being taken by Beaurepaire.’ ‘Bébé is slipping!’ ‘Bébé has slipped!’ Bébé was drowning in their crocodile tears.

  My faith in Bérard could never be shaken. His potentials as an artist are without bounds, his qualities as a human being unique. Bébé enlarges one’s powers of appreciation: he always provides one with something new to ponder upon. An evening in his company is food for thought and inspiration for a year. He tells one so much of architecture, history, of many paintings to discover, authors to read, and such strange and different people to know.

  Before I had time to call him Bébé telephoned to me. He must see me immediately. He was sad — in fact suicidal. No one, even ‘Lady Diana’ (with whom I was again staying), liked him any more — he was sure of it. Anyhow, I know Diana, the most loyal of friends, loves and admires him.

  When I broached the subject to Diana she admitted that, for his own benefit, she had given him a dressing-down for not painting more seriously, and for scattering his talents on Christmas cards and decorations for shops. ‘He does too much that fritters his talent.’ When I asked Diana if Bébé might be invited to discuss the subject again, she at once asked him to dinner.

  There were six of us. Bébé appeared with his aquamarine eyes as clear as stars: he seemed much less podgy, his cheeks pinker.

  His suit was pressed, and he even wore a neat bow-tie under his trimmed beard. When Duff talked on English lore — country houses, Thackeray, Trollope — Bébé showed that he knew as much about England as any of us. In English literature he is as well-versed as Duff.

  Dur
ing the course of the meal Duff informed us that recently he had written to the Office of Works suggesting it would be an economy to supply a standard livery for Embassy and Government House servants. As it is now, the Ministers, who are no more of the category which own its own family liveries, have to resort to Moss Bros. After dinner Bébé (with no discouragement from Diana) covered dozens of pages of Embassy writing paper with suggestions for a simple livery. Of course they were brilliantly devised. How can Bérard escape?

  Bébé, inspired with his pencil, then went on to illustrate the fashions of the new dressmaker, Dior. These, he says, have the same new sense of sex appeal as Chanel created after the Great War. A theory was put forward that fashion was anti-art, that ‘chic’ was to art the same as sex appeal is to love. But Diana considered we were giving too much importance to the subject — for she considers fashions as nothing more than decoration, and cannot conceive of theories about fashion being anything more than a frothy discussion of chiffons and frills. Diana then admitted that she is reluctant to accept new influences, and in doing so makes fun of herself. ‘Have you got to this yet?’ she asks, holding up an exaggeratedly fashionable hat that has been sent to her by the latest shop. ‘I haven’t,’ she proudly claims. ‘Haven’t got to this either!’ she snorts, pointing to a monstrous piece of art nouveau Majolica much admired by certain advanced groups. ‘I have got to Godfrey Kneller and Watts, but I got stuck at Cézanne!’

  When the guests dispersed Bébé came upstairs to my room. He told me that after being a month in a maison de santé, where he suffered the tortures of purgatory, he is now disintoxicated and cured from his opium addiction. He lives afresh, he says: at last he can smell everything as if for the first time. But the torture of the cure has left him very weak, and he becomes easily tired. Already he regrets that he has to return straightaway to a job that he dislikes (designing for a play) for he says the theatre has no further interest for him. He only wants to be allowed to paint. He finds his first freshness being squandered on a job which he could almost do with shut eyes.