The Duchess of Westminster, Loelia Ponsonby (1902-1953), in 1930
The 4 Duchesses of Westminster
History of the Jewels of France
more information: Palace Hotels of the World
the beginning .... Bendor, the Carlton's most glamorous guest
The 4 Duchesses of Westminster
Bendor was married 4 times. Each Duchess received a great many jewels, but when it came to the divorces, the jewels became a bone of contention...
His first wife, Constance Cornwallis West Lewes (1876-1970), bore him 3 children: Lady Ursula (1902 - 1978), Edward Hugh (1904 - 1909) and Lady Mary (1910 - 2000)
But the tragedy was the death of the son who was his heir, for in the England of that era (full of rather absurd conventions, some of which still exist today) the Westminster fortune could only pass to a male heir. And the marriage did not last. The divorce took place in 1919, but the former couple always remained on fairly good terms.
Then came 3 further Duchesses, with whom he had no children
Violet Nelson (1891-1983), married in 1920, divorced in 1926; Loelia Ponsonby (1902-1993), married in 1930, divorced in 1947, later Lady Lindsay of Downhill; and his 4th wife Nancy, Anne Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster (1903-2003), married in 1947
Coco Chanel
In 1925, on the Riviera, Bendor met an extraordinary woman, Coco Chanel (1883 - 1971). She fascinated him because she knew how to stand up to him. And she was not a girl from a “good family”, born with a silver spoon in her mouth, whose life had been rather dull. Nor was she a girl who knew how to do nothing but spend her husband's money. ... this fascinated Bendor.
The life of Coco Chanel is a legend with its ups and downs; her story is on VB.com
Chanel's interlaced “CC” ... one of the most famous logos in the world.
The affair between the Duke and Gabrielle Chanel is legendary too.
According to some, the Duke was so passionate that he had the magnificent emblem, the interlaced “CC” matching Coco Chanel's initials (alas, CC.com does not work), placed on the street lamps. According to others, these inscriptions already existed before Coco.
Coco Chanel is regarded as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. This photograph, taken in 1925, shows Bendor and Coco Chanel at the Hotel Carlton as they set off for the Carlton Tennis Club.
Bendor and Coco Chanel aboard the Flying Cloud, the Duke's yacht, off Cannes
Bendor was also Coco Chanel's great passion. Unlike the wealthiest men of today, who are sometimes so ugly, sometimes too short, but above all ... worst of all ... stingy, Bendor was quite the opposite ... this fascinated Coco.
Coco Chanel with a friend aboard the Flying Cloud.
The Flying Cloud moored off the harbour of Monaco.
The relationship between Bendor and Coco Chanel was often rather "stormy", for Bendor had too great a passion for women, and so often he rushed off to Cartier to buy a little "please forgive me" gift, which was handed over on board the yacht.
And Coco, still in the grip of fury, had nothing better to do than open the parcel which contained neither a "Must de Cartier" perfume nor a "scarf" ... of the kind one finds today but magnificent pearls or a sumptuous brooch, glance at the contents ... and then cast it into the sea.
One ought to send a team of divers to comb the coast of Cannes; perhaps they might be found ...
The affair did not last, partly because Coco was already too old and could not have a child, let us say a son.
And rather than simply freeing himself from the archaic rules of succession, making his daughter Lady Ursula his heiress and living happily with Coco Chanel, Bendor was a prisoner of convention. He felt obliged to have a son and sought a younger wife, namely the 3rd Duchess, with whom the marriage was a disaster.
But Bendor and Coco remained very close and often returned to the Carlton.
In the region Coco owned the magnificent Villa La Pausa, which is also surrounded by legends. Some say that the villa was a gift from Bendor, others that Coco Chanel paid for it herself. In any case, this villa was an opportunity for them to meet on the French Riviera and to go, from time to time, to the Carlton's restaurant.
What Bendor loved most at the Carlton was the “Carlton Bar”, for unlike other hotel bars, where a “moribund atmosphere” sometimes reigns, the Carlton's is always lively ... with plenty of chic, glamorous women to watch.
The years go by ....
The Duke of Westminster in 1952, on his last visit to the Carlton. Those who know the Hotel well may recognise the sliding door.
The Duke's passing the following year was an extremely sad moment for Coco Chanel. For her, he was also all the memories of her "golden years", years of extraordinary happiness despite the quarrels and the jewels thrown overboard from the "Flying Cloud". Fortunately, not all of them ended up in the sea ... Coco Chanel tried to think of other things, and this spurred her to relaunch her couture house. On 4 February 1954 she returned to Paris.
Despite her all-consuming work, there were always moments of sorrow when she thought of Bendor. The Duke remained forever in her heart.
After Bendor's death, Coco was deeply saddened. But there was also another woman who was grieving; yes, she has already been mentioned in connection with Bendor's somewhat extravagant jewellery purchases.
And the two drew closer to console one another, sharing their memories on long night-time walks through the Paris of the 1960s ... some of which took them from the Place Vendôme along the Rue Saint-Honoré towards the Rue des Halles, home of the Cremerie de Paris.
Coco Chanel used to buy cheese there in the 1920s, and one day she discovered its courtyard, which has an incredible history, also linked to the Kingdom of France. Thanks to a figure "5" wrought into the banister of its grand staircase, this spot had become one of Mademoiselle Chanel's favourite places.
But who is this woman, so beautiful, who had become a close friend of Coco Chanel??
Aimée de Heeren
Let us go back a few years ....
One day in 1939, a woman arrived in France who was so beautiful that she had had to leave her native country within 48 hours. No, she had not run 5 red lights doing 200 km/h along the Avenida Atlântica beside Copacabana beach. She was not wanted by the police.
The problem was far more serious. The country's president, the man who governed it longer than any other president and who was said to be the father of modern Brazil, had completely lost his head because he was so deeply in love with her.
It was preventing the government from functioning normally. What is more, the First Lady, Darcy, had found out and was beyond "furious". She was threatening to divorce, which would plunge the country into a constitutional crisis, for in those days a President was not allowed to be in love with someone else. She had to leave in the night; a presidential plane flew her "in the direction of Paris". The drama was one of Brazil's best-kept state secrets, and it was only half a century after the President's death that his memoirs were published.
Fortunately, the aeroplane carried a suitcase containing some jewellery and another filled with dollars, so that she would not arrive in Paris empty-handed.
And no sooner had she arrived at the Hotel Plaza Athénée than she received an invitation to a cocktail party on the French Riviera. She was put up in a villa on the Cap d'Antibes, but during her stay she wanted to discover a hotel she had heard so much about in Brazil. Over there it was a legend, for it was said that the Copacabana Palace had been inspired by it ... the Carlton in Cannes.
As she left the Carlton lobby, someone noticed her, almost without realising it ...
Bendor ....
Bendor was instantly transformed, as if a bolt of lightning had flashed through the hotel's hall ... And already this dream creature, far more beautiful than any girl he had ever seen in his life, had driven off in a car. Bendor was still too stunned to leap onto a scooter and follow her.
Over the following days, Bendor was at the Carlton Bar every day. On the "Flying Cloud", everyone wondered what was going on. He was hoping that this exotic apparition, with flowers all through her hair, would kindly reappear. But alas, the exotic beauty had vanished. For in Paris a new party was being prepared.
Lady Mendl was about to give a ball at her Villa Trianon in Versailles. The whole French Riviera was talking about it. And of course Bendor was invited. There was not a single major party in France or in England to which Bendor was not invited.
Elsie de Wolfe (later Lady Mendl), a rather original decorator born in New York, had come up with the idea of creating a circus in the grounds of her Villa, close to the park of Versailles. The Duke of Westminster had planned a hunt for that date, but a barman at the Carlton advised him: "go, Your Grace, everyone is going to this party". Perhaps he had to go, in the deep hope of finding the exotic apparition once more.
Bendor is so eager to find this exotic beauty again that he arrives an hour early, which does nothing to help the hostess with her very last preparations. Bendor tries to find out who the guests are, but there are 700 of them. Finally he comes across the writer Somerset Maugham, whom he knew well, for Maugham was forever poking fun at Bendor's adventures in his books, which were bestsellers at the time. Of course the writer, too, wanted to know whether the exotic beauty from Brazil would come ... and after two hours of waiting, what should suddenly appear in the line of arriving guests ... but flowers strangely like those seen at the Carlton. It is the moment Bendor has so long awaited.
The Circus Ball was the last great party in France before the nightmare of the war. The end of an era ...
Fortunately, friends urged Aimée to leave France, where she had only just arrived, and to emigrate to the United States, where she was joined by her sister Vera.
In New York, Vera and Aimée arrived like "bombshells", and at once the men of East Coast high society, still very rigid at the time, completely lost their heads. Everyone tried to win over the two Brazilian women. Everyone anticipated what Marilyn would later say about diamonds being a girl's best friend, and the competition was over who could offer the most spectacular jewels. In 1941 the fashion journalists of Time named Aimée one of the 3 most beautiful women in the world; the other two were Wallis Simpson, whom the publisher of this site once saw when her beauty had already suffered a good deal, and the marvellous Babe Paley.
And the tragedy for Bendor is that the first great love of his life had already made a remark that became famous: "there are plenty of Duchesses of Windsor, but only one Coco Chanel", and now Aimée, despite the avalanche of parcels from the Cartier boutique on Fifth Avenue sent by the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts, falls in love with the most handsome young man the East Coast has to offer. He is still a little young to offer jewels of great value:
thanks to his age he is even more handsome than Bendor; indeed he is 37 years younger than him and – this would have caused yet another scandal – 12 years younger than Aimée – which, fortunately, no one knows, not even the young man himself, for Aimée's true age was one of the best-kept secrets in the world; the publisher of this site never knew it either, until at Lenox Hill Hospital a few days before she died ... but that happened almost 70 years later
Unlike the 4 Duchesses and the other ladies selected by Time, whenever Aimée, already a centenarian in the 2000s, entered a room, with or without jewels from Bendor or anyone else, every eye turned towards her,
And to return to this young man from the East Coast, he had an asset that no one else had, except perhaps his 3 brothers: a future pointing towards the White House. Even his mother, Rose, had understood that this exotic creature would be a major asset in winning the race ...
Because of the war, fate turned out differently, and it was one of the brothers who won that race, with a friend of Aimée's at his side ... Jacky Bouvier.
To return to Bendor: from his distant England he watches everything that is happening in New York and says to himself, all these Americans ... There may be "plenty of billionaires who can offer jewels, but there is only one Bendor".
And this gives him the rather exotic idea of hunting down the jewels of the French Crown, for money alone was not enough to find them. One also needed the "Bendor spirit" and perhaps a few magical connections, such as a "Stephane Binet of the last century"; see the following article on the French Crown Jewels.
Bendor hunts down all the jewels of the Empress and of the Bourbons, just as Malcolm Forbes would later set out, with far less success, in pursuit of Fabergé eggs.
But his most intense desire, to be able to marry Aimée, was never fulfilled. Not for anything in the world would she leave her husband, who was also very handsome, likewise younger than her, and to whom she was an extraordinary wife.
The publisher of this site is too young to have known Joseph Kennedy, who died long before he was born. As for Aimée's husband, the publisher was still too young when he died, but his nephew, John Wanamaker Leas, often spoke to him about him. It was a dream marriage that lasted 40 years, with a wife who always remained just as beautiful.
Despite everything, Bendor is happy to be able to keep up this secret friendship, and nothing gives him greater pleasure than offering historic jewels to Aimée.
Jewels from the French Crown, each more spectacular than the last, far surpassing everything the 4 Duchesses had ever received put together.
... the last of them, tucked away in a little red box, was slipped to her with the utmost discretion when they saw each other for the last time, in the midst of the coronation festivities of Queen Elizabeth II. Fortunately, the 4th Duchess had at one point to go and wash her hands ...
It was his last magical gift ... the most beautiful, the most important and the most exceptional, a jewel that no Cartier boutique could ever have sold him.
The little red box held an object that Bendor had been trying to obtain for years, the triumph of his "jewel hunt": one of the most important diamonds of the French Crown, the equal of the Queen of England's.
... as the little red box changed hands, it was accompanied by a few tears and these words: "you are my queen, it was in the crown of the Bourbons, don't forget me, thank you for your overwhelming beauty" – in other words, "you are my queen, it was in the crown of the Bourbons, always remember me fondly, thank you for your utterly exceptional beauty"
The little box was marked "Crown Diamond"
that was the "Bendor" way of saying goodbye. Six weeks later, on 19 July 1953, he was dead.
The three Elizabeths (Bowes-Lyon, Windsor and Taylor) would have been fascinated to witness this scene.
Alas, the publisher of this site has no photograph of these "two slightly mad friends" during the coronation festivities, but by examining the photographs in the Buckingham Palace archives under a magnifying glass, one would surely find pictures of the pair.
As for the "Bendor Diamond", he was able to hold it in his hand twice. It was an object of indescribable brilliance, but alas he did not at all grasp the historical importance of the stone, for perhaps 300 years earlier Louis XIV too had held it in his hand.
But perhaps it was precisely thanks to this lack of awareness that he gained access to so many secrets of the past.
continued .... the French Crown Jewels
Video on various European jewels
A few websites related to this article:
The Cremerie de Paris exhibition centre. In the history of the Cremerie .... Aimée de Heeren, Bendor and Coco Chanel. The story of Chanel by VB.com. The story of Aimee de Heeren. A website on the history of brands: Very Beautiful = VB.com. In preparation: Palace Hotels of the World.com
Information website on the activities of the Dukes of Westminster, Grosvenor Estate, published by Bendor's heir, the 6th Duke of Westminster. Information website on the life of Empress Eugénie's husband, Napoleon III. Information website on the English Dukes