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

by De Margerie, Caroline; Fitzgerald, Frances (INT)

  After the inspection, the two women came to the pressing subject of food. Almost a year after the Liberation, finding something to eat was still the city’s principal obsession. Susan Mary did not eat much, but there were the appetites of Bill and their future guests to consider. Bread, potatoes, and a few pathetic-looking vegetables could be bought with ration cards, but the rest—the essentials—would come from the larders of the American army. When Madame Vallet pointed out that there were other options, Susan Mary told her that Bill had said the black market was off-limits. Nonsense, insisted Madame Vallet, it was impossible to run a house without resorting to such measures, and besides, what Bill didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Susan Mary did not dare argue.2

  The next day, the army supplies arrived in huge twelve-pound cans: bacon, vegetables, fruit, powdered eggs, milk, and chocolate. Once a week they got a roast or a piece of poultry. Everything was kept under lock and key. Susan Mary later realized how privileged she was when she saw the watery soups and creamless cream served in Paris’s finest houses. Her American supplies also made it easy to hire an excellent maid. “Madame will of course have American army provisions?,” the agency’s director had asked hopefully.

  With housekeeping problems taken care of, Susan Mary turned to her duties as a diplomat’s wife. Custom had it that a new arrival left her calling card at the homes of her husband’s colleagues. Susan Mary was summoned one morning by a woman whose husband was the embassy’s political adviser. Her hostess received her in bed with a glass of bourbon already in hand, and warned that Bill’s job was too unimportant for Susan Mary to hope to meet the ambassador’s wife. Ever polite, Susan Mary listened in silence, sent off a few letters to Washington, and soon found herself dining with the American ambassador, Jefferson Caffery.

  V-E Day

  Susan Mary’s other urgent concern was finding work, something she managed easily. Many American soldiers spent their leave in Paris, so the American Red Cross had set up clubs that housed up to ten thousand men. The oldest among them, which had been functioning since September 1944, was called the Rainbow Corner and was located on the boulevard de la Madeleine. Susan Mary went there three times a week dressed in a khaki uniform and cap. She would ride her bicycle along the avenue Foch, with its blooming chestnut trees, before turning onto the Champs-Élysées. Due to gas shortages, there were few cars in the streets, but the American military policeman who directed traffic at the place de la Concorde always recognized her and stopped what little traffic there was to let her turn into the rue Royale, saying, “Go on, miss, I’ll take care of the French.”

  Assigned to the information office, she was charged with, among other things, tracking down Americans and Frenchmen, both civilian and military, whose friends and families were without news. Sorting papers and checking facts, Susan Mary learned about the war and what human beings are capable of doing to one another. Toward the end of the year, she found herself holding the file of Fritz Colloredo-Mansfeld. One of Bill’s best friends, he had signed up for the Royal Air Force in September 1939 and had disappeared over the French coast of the English Channel. She and Bill would later visit his grave in an isolated, windswept field.

  On May 8, 1945, Susan Mary listened with her French friends at the Rainbow Corner as General de Gaulle, head of the provisional French government, announced on the radio the end of the war in Europe following the signing of the German Instrument of Surrender in Reims the previous day. Like many of her fellow countrymen, starting with the late Franklin Roosevelt, who suspected that General de Gaulle harbored ambitions that were less than democratic, Susan Mary did not know what to think of de Gaulle and his political future. Still, she regretted that the Allies had waited so long to recognize the provisional French government (which they finally did on October 23, 1944). As de Gaulle’s voice pronounced the time-worn words gloire, honneur, and patrie to praise the Allies and the people of France, she, like the French themselves, responded with emotion.

  In the morning the city was relatively calm, but after lunch, crowds filled the Parisian streets. Flying Fortresses soared over the Arc de Triomphe, which was bristling with flags. All the army jeeps were gathered on the Champs-Élysées and had picked up boys and girls on the way; some of them were even standing on the running boards, and all were hollering at the tops of their lungs. The mass of people was even denser on the place de la Concorde in front of the Hôtel Crillon and the Navy Ministry, buildings that, for the past four years, had flown the hideous German swastikas. A man stepped out onto the balcony of the American Embassy and made the V sign for victory. Because he was bald and in uniform, the people shouted back, thinking he was Eisenhower. In fact, it was Bullitt, the former ambassador, who had turned over the embassy’s keys to Paul Reynaud when he left Paris in June 1940.

  Suddenly, everything lit up. The Madeleine, the Opera, and the National Assembly shed their solemn stillness and became ephemeral theater sets for a night of festivity. The air was warm. The Republican Guard continued to parade in the rue Royale, a girl seated in the saddle behind every horseman. The “Marseillaise” and old Resistance songs echoed through the streets. The Pattens watched French faces turn heavenward as fireworks burst and dissolved in shimmering wreaths and ribbons that whistled and fell into the Seine.

  Susan Mary would never forget those radiant hours when Paris, laying aside worries and weariness, celebrated victory. Yet when she wrote to her mother about the incredible evening, she ended on a wary note: “The peace is certainly going to be so incredibly difficult.”3

  This Magnificent People

  Although the Second World War had not killed as many French citizens as World War I had, half a million people, including civilians, had died. The conflict had left the nation battered and seriously weakened. War and pillaging had caused the economy to fall to pieces, with industrial production barely reaching half of what it had been in 1938. Agriculture fared little better. Bombing raids had knocked out much of the nation’s infrastructure, and no bridge was left on the Seine downstream from Paris, or on the Loire downstream from Nevers. The crippled transportation system was accompanied by a coal shortage and rising prices. The French government had to find the means to help its citizens survive (a million people were homeless, and city dwellers faced shortages of food, heating, and electricity), while also rebuilding the country according to the ambitious plans set forth by the Resistance movements that included nationalizations, urban planning, and social programs. On top of this, the government needed to assert its authority and return to a state of normal function. Vichy had discredited the political class and the chaos of the war’s end had created de facto leaders who had little desire to step aside and let legal authorities take over. Morally speaking, the state of the French population was not the same as it had been at the end of the First World War, for although huge hopes for national renewal and solidarity had risen with newfound liberty, everyone was aware that the people of France had not stood united during the conflict. The Occupation and the Liberation had stirred up fear and hatred and led to the settling of scores between enemies. In the wake of so much suffering, tension would take a long time to dissipate.

  Eager for new experiences, Susan Mary set off to discover Parisian life, on the streets and in drawing rooms, with a Girl Guide’s enthusiasm, a reporter’s inquiring eye, and the stubbornness of a woman of the world. Curious and untiring, she explored the city on bicycle, observing everything and recounting her adventures in her letters. She described a well-dressed old gentleman hurriedly picking up a cigarette butt she had dropped on the street, and an auction at the Hôtel Drouot where the queens of the black market snapped up furs and jewelry confiscated from collaborators. She also followed French politics as closely as possible, and met several important players, such as Paul Reynaud, the finance minister René Pleven, and Gaston Palewski, one of General de Gaulle’s close aides. Beside American newspapers and magazines like the New York Herald Tribune, Harper’s, Time, and the New Yorker, Susan Mary rea
d the French newspapers, which she found well written but ridiculously small—they were printed on one page only, due to paper shortages. She listened to the comments on the municipal elections in May and the legislative elections in October, where the seats were divided in nearly equal thirds among the Communists (which had become France’s largest political party), the MRP (a new Christian-Democratic party), and the Socialists. In December, Bill told her about the debate in the National Assembly on the nationalization of banks and credit unions. Susan Mary’s concern for France’s monetary situation was far from disinterested. She greeted the December 1945 devaluation of the franc with glee because it meant she could finally afford a dress in one of Paris’s coveted but expensive boutiques.

  Every occasion was an excuse to investigate her French surroundings. She visited Normandy to buy butter and see if the rumors about the farmers’ newfound wealth were true. The ministry of former prisoners of war, victims of deportation, and refugees, headed by Henri Frenay, was just across the street from her house, and she watched with a catch in her throat as the trucks arrived from prisoner-of-war camps. Even more striking were the scenes in the Paris metro in the month of May following the liberation of the concentration camps. When a former prisoner boarded, still wearing his striped uniform, the occupants of the entire car rose to their feet to offer their seats. Susan Mary also tried to come to terms with how French people had behaved during the Occupation. A ceremony organized by the British Embassy to decorate members of the Resistance who had helped the English led her to conclude that heroes came from all walks of life, from modest shopkeepers to old families of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. In July, she attended the trial of Marshal Pétain before the High Court of Justice. Day after day, in an overheated courtroom, she listened to the tearful, grandiloquent justifications of the politicians called in to give testimony until she thought she might be sick. Pétain sat in silence and never came to the stand. All in all, she found the trial chaotic and undignified. Like most Americans, she thought the courts were often too lenient toward those who had profited during the Occupation.

  Susan Mary was equally interested in international news. She and Bill entertained often in their well-heated, comfortable house because they enjoyed it, but also because Bill’s job required them to do so. Their guests were military men, high-placed French civil servants, and Bill’s embassy colleagues. They also invited people in charge of the American zone in Germany and officials who went back and forth between Europe and the United States attending the postwar international conferences. Most of the guests were old friends. The diplomats Chip Bohlen, Paul Nitze, and Nicky Nabokov often dropped in. One August evening, Joe Alsop came to dinner, looking dapper in his captain’s uniform. He was in Paris with General Chennault, under whom he had served in China.

  Susan Mary never knew how many people would be coming to dinner, but she soon began to blossom as a hostess, a role that would later make her famous. She knew how to mix people and ideas, how to lower the lights, and how to spice up conversation with alcohol. She found that well-managed hospitality was not without benefits. Beyond the pleasures of friendship, she liked receiving fresh and reliable news from all over the world, even though it was not always good. It seemed that things were very unstable in Germany. The Americans did not have their zone under control, and the Russian officers were worried at the idea of a new war against their former allies. Susan Mary was concerned by these problems coming so soon after the end of the fighting. She had been horrified by America’s use of the atomic bomb and feared that her country would have to play an imperial role in the world. “My instinct is that we are going to be forced into an exertion of global power that we neither desire nor are ready to fulfill,” she wrote the day after Christmas.4

  Instead of keeping a diary or writing articles, Susan Mary recorded her lucid, detailed, and careful analyses in letters to her mother and her friend Marietta FitzGerald. These letters, written almost daily, show astonishing maturity and perspective for such a young woman. She refused to behave like other Americans stationed in Paris who often dealt in stereotypes, saw corruption everywhere, and were convinced that France was falling into anarchy. She thought the naysayers were too quick to believe the figures given in American newspapers about the killing of supposed collaborators by former Resistance fighters. She tried to stay as informed as possible, comparing different sources and passing judgment only as a last resort. She was most interested in what the French themselves had to say, even if she did not hesitate to express her own opinions.

  Although she was more of an Anglophile and never automatically defended the French—she felt there were too many military parades and days off from work—Susan Mary pointed out their courage and hospitality. She admired the calm with which they greeted tragic events like the loss of a relative in the camps, and noted their general lack of resentment toward the Allies for the damage caused by bombings. The unfavorable comparisons that many American soldiers stationed in Germany made between the French and the Germans angered her. She disliked the triumphalism of the victors, and thought it unfair to despise the French or expect cowed gratitude from them. Rather, she felt it was both an intellectual and a moral obligation to side with the wounded French nation. When the military governor of Paris decried the barbarian behavior of American troops, she was not far from agreeing with him. This sympathy for France’s difficulties was so strong that it often left her feeling discouraged. A few weeks after settling in Paris, she admitted her sadness. “There have been blue moments. The euphoria of arrival wore off. It then struck me that Paris was the most beautiful city I had ever been in but that it was like looking at a Canova death mask. I am sure I am wrong and that the vitality of this magnificent, exasperating, heroic people will return.”5

  French Friendships

  Susan Mary’s attitude can be explained, at least in part, by the immediate bonds she made with several families that introduced her into Parisian society. Grateful to her friends and responsive to their kindness, she broadly generalized her positive feelings about the French and attributed to all the virtues she had noticed in a few.

  Her first letter of introduction took her to the house of a family of well-fed and whiny collaborators to which she did not return. The results of the second letter were another story altogether. She went to the house of Henri and Marie de Noailles, at 52, avenue d’Iéna, with the package of needles, thread, safety pins, chocolate, and instant coffee that their son had entrusted her with in Washington. They invited Susan Mary and Bill to dinner, and the four of them ate in the concierge’s apartment, where there was a stove to keep them warm. After dinner, they went into a small, elegant salon, which also had a stove, and talked quietly about the events of the war.

  The Pattens and the Noailles saw each other often. The Noailles liked the young, well-educated couple who seemed to be curious about everything French. Susan Mary had read Balzac and knew this was the upper crust, a noble family faithful to the past, but without any dusty, paralyzing nostalgia. Henri de Noailles took Susan Mary under his wing and saw to her artistic and social education, leading her to the few rooms that were open in the Louvre, to auctions, and to antique dealers, all the while explaining the ins and outs of French society.

  “You must understand,” he told her on one of their walks, “the only reason you’ve been welcomed here is because everybody was so dreadfully bored for four years. In reality, everything is still very closed off.”

  “But what can I do?” she asked.

  “There’s nothing you can do. Well, perhaps there are a few simple rules. A well-prepared côtelette will lure anybody. And of course, one attracts a lot of Parisians by giving balls, because they are so stingy with their parties. But you can’t hope for anything in exchange.”6

  Susan Mary wondered whether what Henri de Noailles was telling her applied to their relationship, and if she was tolerated only as an exotic distraction. She hoped the friendship was mutual, although, even if it was not, she would have bee
n grateful for his company. In truth, Henri de Noailles found Susan Mary utterly beguiling.

  Thanks to the Noailles, the Pattens discovered the aristocratic side of France and the grand country houses. They visited the Noailles’ château de Mouchy, where the Germans had poked out the eyes in several family portraits before retreating; the château de Grosbois of the La Tour d’Auvergne family; and the château de l’Orfrasière in the Loire Valley, which belonged to the La Panouse family. Their friends took them to visit country neighbors. Every time they walked into an old château, the cold pounced upon them. One child even asked if it was true that people could take off their coats in American sitting rooms. Nevertheless, the Pattens politely admired everything that was shown to them. There was not a garden, it seemed, that had not been designed by Le Nôtre. In turn, the French admired the Pattens’ old Chevrolet, which had just been shipped across the Atlantic.

  Susan Mary missed the ladies’ luncheons that were an essential ingredient of American social life, but eventually she made friends her own age, like Louise de Rougemont, Marie de Maud’huy, and the ravishing Odette Pol-Roger and her sister, Jacqueline Vernes. Apart from Alix de Rothschild, nobody had new clothes and the women casually wore the things they had worn for the past five years, envying Susan Mary’s American stockings and gloves. Susan Mary liked the formality and good manners of the women she met, their old-fashioned grace, politeness toward the elderly, and sense of family. To her thinking, it was the women who were the country’s backbone: young girls who took advantage of the newly relaxed rules to go out dancing in nightclubs, stiff old ladies who dressed in black and devoted themselves to attending receptions and funerals, hearty shopkeepers and talkative concierges. Susan Mary was duly impressed and would have liked to award each of them a prize for endurance and energy.