When one door closes another opens.
”Thursday 9th February 1956
… Princess Margarita has moved to a dullish third-floor flat in Cadogan Square! How odd the German princesses are! For nearly four years she has lived, off and on, with us at Belgrave Square …. Sidney Herbert gave David Hicks and me dinner at a recently opened and attractive restaurant, La Chanterelle, and we went back to David’s very pretty house, 22 South Eaton Place to talk. Brilliant conversation. Sidney is dashing but limited, more limited than narrow. He had never heard of ‘Madame’ – the duchesse d’Orléans of the letters.” ( Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries 1943 – 57, edited by Simon Heffer)
To digress, you might be interested in The Chanterelle’s menu in 1966. I’d like smoked ox tongue, roast piglet and lemon sorbet, please. And where’s the wine list?
The letters? Here is Simon Heffer’s footnote.
”Princess Elizabeth Charlotte von der Pfalz (1652 – 1722), daughter of Charles I Louis, the Elector Palatine, married Philippe I, duc d’Orléans, in 1671. Her letters describing life at the French court in the last decades of the seventeenth century are of great historical importance because of their candour.”
May I be candid? Like Sidney Herbert I did not know about the letters. You don’t learn much at Eton. However, happily, the same friend who gave me Chips III has given me Letters from Liselotte ‘pour la continuation’ as waiters say encouragingly. I’m lapping it up – double thanks, Charles.
Very interesting menu at The Chanterelle. As a Bristolian, now in exile, can anyone tell me what a Bristol Trifle is? I cannot remember having come across one. Perhaps I did not dine in the right places.
I found a receipt online for a Trifle made with Bristol Cream sherry – maybe that’s what was served as a ‘sweet’ at The Chanterelle.
The further you read into Chips (I am at May 1950) the more revolting our hero appears, or perhaps he is just getting franker, or perhaps, as with all of us, his bad traits are just getting more pronounced with age. Paradoxically, it also becomes more compelling reading. Perhaps this is because any possible envy of his life and of his lifestyle evaporates completely
Fascinatingly the diaries contain references to distant forebears of perfectly normal (and dare I say “middle class’?) people among my own friends; it is always interesting to spook them by revealing Chips’ tales of same ancient great great aunt, or whatever; it occasionally provokes the disclosure of long hidden family myths
The letters must be entertaining. Saint-Simon mentions one that was outrageous enough that the postal surveillance copied it only rather than making a summary, as was the usual routine. But being limited, or maybe narrow, I had not heard that the letters ever made it into print.
She was wonderfully blunt and quite funny. Glad you are enjoying.