Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War

by Hal Vaughan

  In 1928, the fairy tale continued as Chanel hunted wild boar with Churchill at Westminster’s lodge, Mimizan, south of Bordeaux. Churchill, then the chancellor of the Exchequer, and his son, Randolph, are portrayed in a Daily Mail news clipping showing Coco in greatcoat, bowler hat, and booted with riding crop in hand. She stands like a queen between the two Churchills, surrounded by a pack of beagle hunting dogs. A copy of the article is annotated in Chanel’s hand: “A very charming picture … the feather in your cap is missing. Daily Mail, 11 Jan. 1928.” Churchill marked the occasion in a letter to his wife, Clementine:

  The famous Chanel turned up and I took great fancy to her—a most capable and agreeable woman—much the stronger personality Benny [Bendor] has been up against. She hunted vigorously all day, motored to Paris after dinner, and today is engaged in passing and improving dresses on endless streams of mannequins. All together 200 models have to be settled in almost three weeks. She does it all with her own fingers, pinning, cutting, looping. Some have to be altered ten times. With her is Vera Bate, nee Arkwright, Yr chief of staff? Non—One of your lieutenants? Non, Elle est là. Voilà tout.

  Later, Winston wrote Clementine again from Stack Lodge in Scotland: “Chanel is here in place of Violet [Bendor’s second wife] … she fishes from morn to night and has killed fifty salmon (sometimes weighing 24 pounds). She is very agreeable—really a great and strong being, fit to rule a man and an empire. Benny is very well and I think extremely happy to be mated with an equal. Her ability is balancing his power.”

  Churchill, clearly captivated by Chanel, was on the mark. Her creative energy seemed limitless. She would play, ride, fish, slake Bendor’s lust, and then return to her mannequins to create ravishing outfits, such as her sexy and famously simple “little black dress,” which was hailed by fashion cognoscenti. Among them, Janet Wallach, Chanel biographer and fashion director, wrote: “[Chanel] created elegant clothes and elegant settings at once comfortable, luxurious and chic; and she entertained an extraordinary number of friends. Her interests ranged from athletics to the intellectual—she [even claimed] to have read all the books in her library.” Summing up, Wallach said, “She had a quick mind, a quicker tongue and a wit to amuse the most jaded of men.”

  Chanel had a genius for exploiting everything and everyone she came in contact with and went about inventing a lifestyle based on Westminster’s manner and his dash. But her career and ambitions kept the couple apart. Bendor missed Chanel and resented the time she devoted to her work. Her friend Lady Iya Abdy said, “She really had two real loves … herself … and her fashion house … everything else was merely passion, weakness, adventures without a future, calculated liaisons.”

  Mademoiselle knew full well that Bendor’s desire to “look after her” was shorthand for “you will have no obligation but me.” Frustrated by her absences, Bendor begged Vera to help keep Chanel in London. His scheme was to convince Chanel to open a London boutique where she would be kept busy—and conveniently close to him.

  The London House of Chanel was an immediate success. The Duchess of York, future Queen of England, and a host of prominent English noble ladies and socialites became her clients. Chanel was the name on everyone’s lips. And from her ateliers in Paris, Chanel produced the toque, a pillbox hat. It was a perfect addition to her dress in black crêpe de chine with long sleeves—Chanel’s proverbial little black dress.

  It was during this London period that Chanel introduced her early version of the classic jersey suit with a cardigan jacket, low-belted pullover top, and pleated skirt. Every motif and article of clothing that came to her eye was food for inspiration, from Bendor’s tweeds to his sailor’s caps to his valet’s vests. Bold and inventive, she personally wore bell-bottom trousers and crewneck sweaters, projecting a sexy, at-ease look. A picture taken at her La Pausa retreat shows Chanel, her waist pinched by a decorative belt, smiling and happy while her Great Dane, called Gigot (a gift from Bendor; the name means “leg of lamb” in French), looks at the camera.

  DESPITE OCCASIONAL SPATS, Bendor never stopped showering Chanel with gifts: works of art, precious jewels, a house in Mayfair, and a five-acre plot near Roquebrune at Cap-Martin between Menton and Monte Carlo. Bendor purchased it in 1928 for 1.8 million francs (over $3 million today) and then deeded it to Chanel on February 9, 1929. There, they built La Pausa, at the top of Roquebrune near Monte Carlo, their ideal villa. (When completed by Chanel sometime in 1929, the total investment in La Pausa would amount to 6 million francs—the equivalent of almost 12 million dollars in 2010.)

  Chanel’s metamorphosis was now complete. In her forties, this onetime waif, impoverished orphan, and concubine had been transformed into a middle-aged fairy princess.

  THE DUKE’S ONLY SON had died at the age of four in 1909, and Bendor desperately wanted a male heir. As early as 1926 he began insisting Chanel give up her career and become a full-time companion. But it’s very difficult to believe that he ever truly intended to make Chanel his wife, a duchess, and the mother of an heir to his dukedom. The chance of Chanel giving birth to a child after forty was slim, indeed. She would later tell a German journalist why she had never married: “Because of my work, I suppose. The two men I loved never understood that. They were rich and didn’t understand that a woman, even a rich woman, might want to work. I could never have given up the House of Chanel. It was my child. I created it starting from nothing. I once said to the Duke of Westminster, ‘Why should we marry? We’re together … people accept it.’ I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.”

  Chanel’s friends thought she was timid with children, didn’t understand them, and didn’t know how to talk to them. Still, Chanel and Boy Capel unofficially adopted Chanel’s nephew, André Palasse—and sent him to an English boarding school to have the best education. Later, she became a loving aunt and surrogate mother to André’s eldest daughter, Gabrielle “Tiny” Palasse—“Gabrielle” to honor Chanel.

  Neither Chanel nor Bendor ever really insisted on a marriage. To prove her independence, Chanel eventually returned his unused checkbook to his secretary. “I have used my own money.” She steadfastly refused to be seen as any man’s kept woman.

  When Bendor invited Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe, an accomplished sportswoman and a startling Viennese beauty, to fish with him in Scotland, Chanel reacted by meeting her former poet lover, Pierre Reverdy in Paris—throwing Bendor into a jealous rage. He declared, “Chanel is crazy” as he bombarded her apartment with letter after letter. Chanel would reply, “All I want from you are wildflowers picked by your own hands.” The Duke then showered her with flowers—under the leaves of which were hidden yet more precious jewels.

  It is doubtful that the beautiful and wealthy Stephanie was ever a competitor of Chanel’s. The Viennese princess was of partial Jewish descent—and Bendor was fervently anti-Semitic. In a notorious breach of etiquette, he went so far as to refer to the British royal family as “those Jews,” falsely believing that Queen Victoria’s Prince Consort, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, had Jewish origins. After a number of whiskeys, and in front of a Rothschild, Bendor would repeat, “I cannot bear those bloody Jews.” It is a bit of irony that a few years later with the Nazi regime in power, Stephanie would become Adolf Hitler’s “dear Princess.” SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler solved her “Jewish problem” by making Stephanie an “honorary Aryan.” Beginning in 1932, she worked in London as an agent for Nazi intelligence, serving as a liaison between British pro-Nazis and powerful men and women in London society and politics: Bendor, the Prince of Wales, London Daily Mail owner Lord Rothermere, Lady Margot Asquith, Lady Ethel Snowden, and Lady Edith Londonderry. In 1937, Stephanie was instrumental in arranging meetings between Hitler and Edward Wood, Lord Halifax, and the Duke of Windsor—the uncrowned King Edward VIII—and his bride, the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. All three were rabid anti-Communists, feared Soviet Russia, and preached an accommodation with Nazi Germany—in their view, an essential European
rampart against the Communist hordes.

  THE DISSOLUTION OF CHANEL and the duke’s fairy-tale love affair was slow but inescapable. Chanel treasured her free spirit. She searched for true love, and when she thought she had it, it turned out to be an impossible love. It was impossible because Chanel was her own woman, and after nearly five years with Bendor, she was simply bored with the Duke’s lifestyle. He, in turn, was no longer so keen on being part of hers. Bendor began to dread spending time with her clever Parisian friends—the jokes and sly asides of Cocteau, Diaghilev, and his lover, Serge Lifar, were way over his head. But the egocentric Duke continued to cling to Coco despite their bad-tempered shouting matches over his frequent infidelities. Eventually, Churchill reminded Bendor of his royal obligations—the need for him to have an heir and the fact that Chanel would never be accepted at Court.

  Serge Lifar, as Vestris, in a costume designed by Chanel, with Marie-Laure de Noailles at the “Bal du Tricentenaire de Racine,” hosted by the Count de Beaumont, June 1939. Lifar was one of Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring’s favorite ballet masters. Terrified when Paris was liberated, Lifar hid from French resistance fighters in Chanel’s wardrobe at her apartment on the rue Cambon. (illustration credit 3.6)

  ALL THIS TIME, Chanel and Bendor apparently never realized that the French police and the Sûreté were closely monitoring their comings and goings. One report told how:

  The Duke makes frequent trips to France; [and] to the Château de Woolsack (at Mimizan, Landes). When in Paris the Duke stays at Chanel’s apartment. The former demimondaine [Chanel] has excellent relations in political and diplomatic circles. The Duke of Westminster, who is divorced, takes a great interest in the “petites mains” [Chanel’s little hands—artisan employees who sew dresses, buttons, etc.] of the House of Chanel. During last summer a number of [Chanel’s employees] passed their vacations at the Château de Woolsack, where they were offered a princely table and lodging. It goes on every year.

  Vera Bate divorced her American husband in 1929 and then married Alberto Lombardi, an Italian calvary officer. She now became an Italian citizen. The French Sûreté expanded its investigations to include Vera and her new husband. Reports documented their telephone conversations, travel, and relations with Chanel and Bendor. In 1930, Vera left Chanel to work for a competitor, the Paris fashion house Molyneux. Then suddenly, Vera moved to Rome with her husband, now a colonel in the Italian cavalry. The Sûreté suspected him of working for the Italian military intelligence service.

  THE YEARS SLIPPED BY. Bendor could not stop seeking new conquests, and he could not stop wanting to possess Chanel. Later, Chanel would proclaim: “I never tried to get him. If one is titled, rich, very rich, one becomes fair game, a quarry: a hare, a fox. Those English ladies are great hunters; they are forever hunting. I have never imagined thinking, here is a man I want; I’ll get him—where is my gun?”

  The summer of 1929 brought their affair to its inevitable conclusion. Chanel and Misia Sert had agreed to join Bendor aboard the Flying Cloud. It must have been wonderfully irreverent irony—his crew of forty, amid the massive furniture, great canopied beds, and extravagance, contrasted with the two intimate and caustic Parisian women who could play mischievous imps, giggling and taking drugs together. The revelry ended abruptly when out of the blue, a telegram arrived from Venice, announcing that Diaghilev was near death.

  When the Flying Cloud reached Venice, Misia and Chanel rushed to the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido to find Diaghilev desperately ill and being cared for by his lovers, the dancers Boris Kochno and Serge Lifar. Diaghilev was terrified of dying. Their visit seemed to lift his spirits. Leaving Misia to look after him, Chanel returned to Bendor. Misia approached a Roman Catholic priest to grant absolution to Diaghilev. At first, the priest refused, as the dancer was Russian Orthodox. Beset by Misia’s fury, the cleric relented, and this Dostoyevsky-like character—a magician in the art of the ballet, the man who promoted Michel Fokine, Nijinsky, Léonide Massine, and George Balanchine—passed away.

  Misia was crushed. She later claimed, “A piece of me went with him.” Lifar and Kochno couldn’t bear their master’s death; it seemed a desperate moment. Chanel, driven by a presentiment, returned to Venice, where she and Misia arranged a mass followed by a burial service. Dressed in white, Misia, Chanel, Lifar, and Kochno accompanied Diaghilev’s coffin mounted on a gondola through the canals of Venice and to the impresario’s gravesite on the burial island of San Michele.

  Bendor insisted Chanel return aboard his schooner. But the romance was spent, the passion long gone. Bendor could not resist his impulses. Like the hunter he was, he had to pursue other women—and Chanel found that intolerable. They quarreled continually. It may be one of Chanel’s myths—one of the many that surround her years with Bendor—but nevertheless the anecdote is a touching final souvenir. The story has the couple arguing aboard the Flying Cloud anchored off Villefranche on the Côte d’Azur. The Duke had then gone ashore. One legend has it that he returned to Chanel with a breathtaking emerald, and, under a perfect moon, he slipped the stone into the hollow of Chanel’s palm. Without a thought she let the precious gem fall into the sea.

  AFTER BEING THE LOVER of the richest man in the United Kingdom, Chanel returned briefly to Pierre Reverdy—the pure Mediterranean and tortured poet. With his swarthy complexion and thick black hair, Reverdy may well have been a latent image of Gabrielle’s lost love, the father she hardly knew. Unlike the duke, Reverdy was a mate—his origins being very much like hers. When he showed signs of boredom at living at the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré apartment, Chanel found a studio apartment for him nearby. But Reverdy wouldn’t allow himself to be captured. He soon fled again to Solesmes, only to return a few weeks later to Chanel, and to briefly carouse with Cocteau, Max Jacob (the Jewish poet converted to Catholicism), Blaise Cendrars, Léger, and Braque.

  Reverdy now preferred American jazz musicians, solidly installed in Paris, to Chanel’s friends. Coco scorned nights out: “the bad food, bad booze, and the idiots that repeat the same stories, time after time, just to say something.” She seldom joined in Reverdy’s nightlife, preferring to be in bed early so she could rise early for work.

  Ultimately, Chanel lured Pierre to La Pausa—hoping a change in climate and the beauty of her Mediterranean hideaway would work some magic on their romance.

  It was during visits to La Pausa that Reverdy helped Chanel compile a series of maxims that would years later be published in Vogue. Earlier, she had written articles for Parisian women’s reviews: Le Miroir du monde, Les Femmes et le sport, and Le Nouveau Luxe. Now, in middle age, she wanted to do something literary—just as she had wanted to sing and play the piano as a young woman. The maxims included: “Our homes are our prisons; one finds liberty in their decoration.” “One can get used to ugliness—never neglect.” “Real generosity is to accept ungratefulness.” The material was a bit like Reverdy’s cut-and-dried poetry.

  Back in Paris, Reverdy was again captivated but also repelled by the glitter of wealth that surrounded Chanel. Despite his hatred for Paris elite society, he accepted Chanel’s money and seemed to enjoy embarrassing her—bursting in on dinner parties and then fleeing. Finally, as much as she loved Reverdy, Chanel realized he could never fit into her world. Forever friends and sometimes lovers, the pair agreed it was time for them to part. He left a touching few lines for Chanel: “I love you and I leave you/I need to walk on/perhaps we’ll meet again/exchange memories, talk about other times/then, you’ll come back to me/and we’ll laugh.” (Later, Reverdy, as an armed French partisan during the occupation, would arrest Chanel’s wartime colleague, French Baron Louis de Vaufreland, during the liberation of Paris and send him to prison for collaboration with the Nazis.)

  Among the Paris elite, the breakup with Reverdy did not have the same gravity as Chanel’s split from Bendor. “Imagine,” wrote Chanel’s biographers. “The little peasant out of her provincial rut refusing to marry the Duke of Westminster.” But as
a child, Chanel had dreamed of escaping the prison of convent life. With hard work and an intuitive sense of good taste, feminine charm, and stubborn, rebellious, ambition, Chanel left poverty behind and entered a world of silks, satins, precious jewels, immense wealth, and notoriety. She was on a velvet roll as she set out to do without Bendor. “One must not let oneself be forgotten, one must stay on the toboggan. The toboggan is what people who are talked about ride on. One must get a front seat and not let oneself be put out of it.”

  Bendor fell in love again. He brought his fiancée, Loelia (pronounced “Leelia”) Ponsonby, almost half his age and the well-bred daughter of the king’s treasurer to Paris, in the spring of 1930 to meet Chanel. One had to wonder if Bendor was being deliberately cruel—or simply callous toward Loelia’s feelings. Either way, Bendor insisted that Chanel speak with her and tell him if the lady was suitable. While the duke wandered around the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré house that he knew so well, a sophisticated and elegant Chanel appeared bejeweled and dressed in a navy blue suit with a white blouse, making the twenty-eight-year-old Loelia feel “gawky and dowdy.” Loelia remembered Chanel as

  small, dark and simian … the personification of her own fashion … hung with every sort of necklace and bracelet which rattled as she moved. Her sitting room was lavish and she sat in a large armchair, a pair of tall Coromandel screens making an effective background. I perched, rather at a disadvantage; on a stool at her feet … I doubt that I or my tweed suit passed the test. For something to say I told her that Mrs. George Keppel had given me a Chanel necklace as a Christmas present. Immediately she asked me to describe the necklace.