The Riviera Set

by Mary S. Lovell

  Four days later the German army entered Paris. All English who were still in France were ordered home, causing the Germans to issue the propaganda statement that the English would fight to the last Frenchman. Within days Marshal Pétain began collaboration negotiations, and a month later announced an armistice with Germany, establishing his puppet government at Vichy. At this point the Italian air force were flying daily sorties over the towns along the Riviera, and although no serious bombing occurred there was some strafing, which alarmed the inhabitants. After France fell on 25 June, Italy and France signed a pact agreeing an Italian Zone of Occupation, an area which was formally annexed to Italy and under Italian economic control. Nice, however, lay within the Demilitarised Zone, which was administered by Pétain.

  Fanny and Jules, Maxine’s servants, had talked with Blossom after Maxine’s death about what to do if France fell, and now decided that this was the time to act. They loaded up the car with most of the Churchill paintings, a few Impressionist paintings and a portrait of Maxine, together with the portable silver and items they knew Maxine had most treasured, and retired to a cottage up in the hills where they eked out the war years having hidden the items in their charge.

  The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, meanwhile, were advised not to remain in France, but the Duke wasted some days by insisting on certain royal privileges, all of which were refused. Eventually on 19 June – Wallis’s birthday – they set off for Spain with Ladbrooke driving their Buick limousine and towing a small trailer containing their most prized possessions, in a convoy which included the American consul at Nice and some other officials. It would be 1 August before they were able to get berths on a ship crossing the Atlantic from Lisbon.

  As they drove through Cannes the Duchess saw in the roadstead of the port two rusty old cargo ships that had been sent to pick up the remaining British expats, among them the Duke’s Scots Guard piper and Somerset Maugham, who had sold his converted fishing boat on which he had been living. The two ships – old coalers out of Liverpool were all that could be spared from the war effort – had been sent to

  Cannes to evacuate any British subjects who wished to leave via Gibraltar. At the dock pandemonium reigned; cars were given away for packets of cigarettes and sundry food and supplies to take with them on the ill-equipped vessels. The passengers had a long and weary voyage in overcrowded ships not prepared for either the Bay of Biscay or the battles being waged in the Channel. It would be weeks before they arrived in England, and meanwhile Somerset Maugham had been reported ‘missing, after the fall of France’. He arrived in good time to experience the effects of the Battle of Britain, when, after attacking RAF bases, the Luftwaffe began to concentrate its efforts on the major cities. From 7 September 1940 London alone was bombed on fifty-seven consecutive nights; more than forty thousand people were killed and a million homes destroyed.

  Those who had been part of the pre-war Riviera set did not allow their partying to be interrupted by such inconveniences. Many headed for London, where those who could afford it – including Laura Corrigan, Duff and Diana Cooper, Emerald Cunard and many others who had graced the terrace at the Château de l’Horizon – had taken up residence at the great hotels on Park Lane. At the supposedly bomb-proof pre-stressed concrete Dorchester Hotel,¶ ‘The Dorch’, they met almost nightly, and the serious hostesses such as Emerald Cunard (who had made a circuitous journey from New York because she felt it her duty to be in England at this time) continued to entertain as before. Sybil Colefax remained in her Westminster home, but she held one of her ‘ordinaries’ – dinner – at the Dorchester every Thursday night for about thirty people. Guests knew that they would receive a discreet bill for ten shillings and sixpence later in the week, but it was one way of continuing the old way of life: as Diana Cooper said, ‘Living in this hotel, one need never wrestle with the blackout.’3

  Among the regular guests was Randolph Churchill’s young wife, Pam. With Randolph in the army, and baby Winston safely ensconced at Cherkley Court, Beaverbrook’s country home, with his nanny, Pam found a job as a secretary in order to help pay off Randolph’s gambling debts. This took rather a long time as she stayed at the Dorchester – actually not quite as lavish as it sounds since she occupied a room at roof level; because of the nightly bombings these rooms were unpopular and cost only six pounds a week. She lived fairly cheaply, eating at the nightly dinners and parties, and more often than not ended up sleeping in the basement ‘dormitory’ with nervous guests, until she started a romance with Averell Harriman# and moved into his suite.

  On the Riviera there was no partying. Farmers had their crops annexed – a troop of soldiers would move in and harvest the crop for them, and cart it off to feed the army (although after 1942 it was mostly shipped to Germany). For the remainder of the war food was uppermost in most people’s minds in Provence: queues outside shops began before daylight, winter and summer, but within minutes of opening everything was gone. Coffee was unobtainable, and an unpalatable, bittertasting alternative made from roasted acorns was introduced. Eggs, milk, butter and cheese were available only on the black market. A few staples got through from the north but nothing came in by sea to Vichy France because the British blockaded the coast with submarines. Everyone who could cultivated small handkerchief-sized plots for salad leaves, potatoes, a vine, a fruit tree, hidden away and too small to catch the eye of food inspectors, who would wait for apple and citrus trees to bear fruit before stripping them. Lucky were those who managed to keep a chicken or two in a secluded location.

  The United States joined the war in December 1941, but throughout 1942 and 1943 all these existing problems worsened. Leather became unobtainable; worn-out shoes were replaced by clogs, or a wooden sole with a piece of fabric fastened across the top. Electricity and gas supplies were unreliable, more off than on, and running water was often a luxury. Frail and elderly people, or sick children, died of malnutrition. As the year dragged to an end the Allies invaded North Africa, in Operation Torch in November.

  German and Italian troops then occupied Vichy France, but it was mainly the elite Italian mountain troops, the Bersaglieri, their black helmets decorated with knots of black cockerel feathers, who rode gaily into the Riviera resorts astride their motorcycles to occupy the coastal towns. Most big hotels housed troops, and luxury villas were allocated to senior officers. The Château de l’Horizon would, during the next two years, house officers from both the Italian and German armies, including some Gestapo chiefs. While Operation Torch was taking place the Italians began expanding their zone of occupation, with every intention of annexing the entire Alpes-Maritimes, plus Monaco and Corsica. This plan was never completed because in September 1943 Germany took over the Italian zones, and the four divisions of the Italian army of occupation surrendered to the Allies.

  Unlike the experience of the occupying Germans in France, almost no resistance was offered to the Italians in Provence and they were accepted by residents as ‘cheerful boys ... farm workers or fishermen’4 who regarded their posting to the Riviera as La dolce vita. The worst part of the occupation was shortages of food, drink, transport and electricity, to which the occupying army had priority at the expense of local inhabitants, but there was another aspect to the Italian occupation. Mussolini was Fascist, but he was not anti-Semitic – indeed he had a Jewish mistress, Margherita Sarfatti – and Italian troops were ordered not to hand over Jews to the Germans, nor to assist with any deportation orders sending Jews to Germany. The Italian occupied zone thus became a refuge for Jews fleeing from Vichy France and elsewhere.

  At the beginning of the war Prince Aly Khan, son of Maxine’s friend the Aga, was serving as an officer in the French Foreign Legion in Syria. After France fell, the French in Syria felt that the British had betrayed them, having run away back to their island leaving them to face the Germans, and as a result they were in favour of surrendering to the Axis invaders in Syria. Aly duly resigned his commission, crossed into Lebanon and had to flee from his Beirut apar
tment across the rooftops, carrying his favourite saddle. He made his way to Egypt and at El Mansura, where he found an elite outfit of British yeomanry camped at an old Roman aqueduct, he simply walked in and asked to join them. Among the officers were some old friends including Lord Weymouth and the Earl of Cadogan (who had married Aly’s sister-in-law), so he was welcomed and given a commission as second lieutenant. Shortly afterwards, because of his intimate knowledge of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern geography and his linguistic skills, he was posted to military intelligence in Cairo. Under the command of the eccentric Major Alfred D. Wintle,** he had an entertaining war, and was certainly useful to the Allied effort: he was engaged in special propaganda and intelligence, which included making broadcasts in many languages to Muslim audiences to rally them to the Allied cause, and setting up a network of Ismaili agents throughout the Middle East.

  In August 1944, some weeks after D-Day, Allied forces landed in St Tropez and Aly, now a major attached as British liaison officer to the US Army, was in the vanguard of the liberation force. He regarded the Riviera as home and made sure he was among the first ashore on a landing craft in order to see how it had weathered the war years. As soon as he could get away he grabbed a jeep and made straight for Cannes – hardly recognisable despite the hot Riviera sunshine under its wartime adornment of tank traps, barbed wire and Nazi roadblocks. The Carlton Hotel was closed and the front entrance barred by an unoccupied German concrete lookout post, but Aly guessed (or possibly knew from intelligence received) that there was a skeleton staff in the hotel, probably hiding away until the fighting subsided, so he went to the side door and banged on it until someone answered. Once admitted, because he knew his way around, he made straight for the director’s office, where he ‘liberated’ the Carlton. For the few staff crowding round Aly, he had personally liberated the Riviera. The director insisted the Royal Suite should be got ready for him immediately, but Aly had some personal business to attend to. He wanted to see what had happened to his father’s Villa Jane-Andrée on the Cap d’Antibes. Among those who had stayed behind in Cannes was Tommy Burke, the professional tennis player and an old friend of Aly’s, and he was sent for and roped in to accompany Aly on his mission. Nobody knew whether they would encounter opposition for Aly was ahead of the Americans. They met no gunfire, and within five minutes were motoring along the empty coast road to Juan-les-Pins when they saw the bridge across the railway line which was the entrance to the Château de l’Horizon. Burke knew the villa as well as Aly, having often coached Maxine’s guests there, so they decided to drive in and take a look.

  It was deserted, the grounds neglected and overgrown, the house in need of painting, the bottom of the pool covered with dirty stagnant water and rubbish. Everywhere was full of weeds and huge coils of barbed wire lay about. They trod warily, suspecting (correctly) that it might have been mined. Peering through the locked windows, they could see that although the house needed attention it was undamaged. Next they drove on to Villa Jane-Andrée, which for many years had been the home of Aly’s stepmother. In full battle-dress Aly was not at first recognised by Kitty, a friend of the Princess Andrée’s, who came to the door at the top of the steps and shouted at them from a distance to go away. She had protected the villa from the Germans and Italians, she told them, and she wasn’t going to hand it over to the Americans now. When she saw who it was she fell weeping into Aly’s arms. He also checked out the villa that had once been his mother’s, where she had had her sculpting studio and produced notable works exhibited under the name Yla (her son’s name reversed). A quick tour of Antibes followed and he savoured the views from the hill and the unique peppery, dusty, herby scent of the air under the hot sun before he returned to his unit. His commanding officer in those first months in Provence as the Americans took over was Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr, who stated that Aly proved to be invaluable, winning over the suspicious locals with his native French and charming manner. Aly once said that he had never been happier than during the years 1941 to 1945.

  * Monckton had served as legal adviser to Edward VIII at the time of the abdication.

  † During her first marriage, as a young bride on a naval air base, she had witnessed several fatal flying accidents.

  ‡ The Duke immediately noticed that Randolphs spurs were upside down.

  § Later, although refusing to perform for the Nazis, Chevalier agreed to entertain French captives in exchange for the release of ten French POWs from the same camp where he was prisoner during the First World War. This story was misreported and he was accused of collaboration but cleared of all charges thanks to evidence given by Charles de Gaulle and Marlene Dietrich. Fie spent most of the war years in the unoccupied zone of France – anxious not to draw attention to himself because Nita was a Jew. He sheltered her family in his Paris apartment and after the war he and Nita married.

  ¶ The hotel never received a direct hit so the claim was not put to the test.

  # Averell Harriman was President Roosevelt’s personal representative on shipping and supply questions. He inherited an immense fortune soon after graduating from Yale and was close friend of the Roosevelt family.

  ** Wintle lost an eye and a hand in the First World War, and spoke both French and German well enough to pass for a native of either country. He is now mostly known for a television biography, The Last Englishman, and a letter written by him to the Editor of The Times which read: ‘Sir, I have just written you a long letter. On reading it over, I have thrown it into the waste paper basket. Hoping this will meet with your approval, I am, Sir, Your obedient Servant, AD Wintle’.

  11

  Return of Peace

  Prince Aly Khan was not the only old friend of Maxine’s to visit Château de l’Horizon as the war came to an end. Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, who had twice visited the villa with Winston prior to 1939, looked in during March 1945 and found it intact except for a badly leaking roof which had damaged the decoration in most of the bedrooms.

  He wrote to tell Winston that the villa had been occupied by ‘the Boche’, but according to Fanny they had taken little apart from a painting of the swimming pool by Winston, and some autographed volumes of Marlborough dedicated to Maxine. It was believed that these items had been sent direct to Hitler. In fact, several pictures were later found to be missing, including some full-length portraits of Maxine, too large to be moved by Fanny and Jules, that were never traced. As a parting gift the Germans had seeded the garden with landmines: Jules narrowly missed being blown up when he put his foot down just a few inches from one. The US Army, who were about to take over the area, cleared them and set a work party to empty the pool of rubble. Even so, ‘It all looked somewhat sad,’ Bomber Harris reported, adding news about the general situation in Antibes where the local people were ‘terribly hungry’.1

  Apart from the German occupation, the Château de l’Horizon had another wartime record. Barry Dierks worked with the French Resistance, and whenever he learned that the villa was unoccupied he used his own set of keys to gain entrance. It made a safe rendezvous and base for meetings, virtually under the noses of the Gestapo.

  The villa, already looking a little better for the attentions of the Sixth Army and hard work by Fanny and Jules, was rented out in summer 1947 complete with the Churchill paintings. The tenant, who described herself as ‘half Cherokee’, Rosita Winston was the wife of Norman Winston (her second husband), who had made an estimated forty million dollars from mass housing. Rosita was keen to use some of those millions to capitalise on the villa’s short but illustrious history to make her own reputation as a party-giver.

  In a report about the post-war Riviera, Life magazine recounted how the willowy Rosita ‘swept in’ driving her custom-built black Packard Cabriole, ‘wearing a simple cotton dress that cost $275 if it cost a dime’, her mop of frizzy hair bound up in a flame-coloured scarf. After she proceeded to fling a good portion of her husband’s millions around, Rosita quickly became a fixture on the social s
cene.

  By the end of that summer, although the Château de l’Horizon was still looking somewhat the worse for wear, it was once again the place to be seen. Impoverished British and European noblemen – anyone with a title had an open invitation – together with society divorcees who were temporarily between husbands, were once again able, according to Life, to enjoy ‘an adequate diet of caviar, Scottish grouse and vintage champagne’, while ‘lounging against the soft cushions of the terrace around the blue-green pool’,2 all thanks to ‘the Winston Plan’.* Lunch for twenty was inevitably followed by dinner for thirty on seven days a week. Protests by overworked staff were settled with offers of increased pay, bonuses and bottles of champagne, which were handed round to rehydrate the kitchen workers.

  The food bill alone was 100,000 to 150,000 francs a week† – literally a fortune to hard-pressed local people still struggling to feed families with inadequate post-war rations on 150 francs a week. The ever-present queues that straggled down the streets outside the butchers’ shops in Juan-les-Pins and Antibes were testimony to the fact that the local population was suffering the same uncertainty, privations and inconvenience as war-weary people all over Europe. The daily bread allowance in Provence was 250 grams, and when this very poor product was threatened with a reduction of 50 grams, hundreds of indignant housewives pushing babies in pushchairs demonstrated, carrying home-made posters bearing slogans such as ‘Amélioration de la qualité du pain, and Maintien de la ration de pain a 2$ogr!’

  For the rich though – mostly Americans in the post-war years, along with a good sprinkling of Belgians and those from neutral countries such as Switzerland, Sweden and Argentina, who had profited in various ways – those who found their way back to this small sliver of opulence in the gigantic poorhouse that was Europe for a decade following the war, there was no hardship and nothing that could not be obtained on the black market. The Hôtel du Cap was fully booked for months ahead, and you needed to ‘know someone’ to get into the two most popular restaurants,‡ where the selection of hors d’oeuvres was greater than that at the Dorchester or Claridge’s. The journalist Charles J.V. Murphy, writing a long article about the Riviera in 1947 for Life magazine, attended a party at the Casino in Cannes, where the orchestra played Cole Porter numbers in the moonlight and he was informed by a woman guest ‘that there were at least two dozen Paris gowns on the dance terrace which had cost 100,000 to 150,000 francs each’. He wrote succinctly: ‘Wealth never disappears. It only changes hands.’3