PAUL MELLON's FUNERAL and DORCAS HARDIN OBITUARY

Missy here:  When the man that a woman has been mistress to, especially when she has been so for many years or to the end of his life, dies, what is the 21st century etiquette?  Does she attend his funeral or not?  As we learned when in January 2020 I covered  Art Historian Anne Pingeot, the Mistress of French statesman and President Francois Maurice Mitterrand. who did attend his funeral, as perhaps the attitude in France is different than in the United States.  Or perhaps it was the attitude his wife had. 

Page 402:  Paul Mellon died on February 1, 1999, almost to the day his doctor had reportedly predicted. A week later, his gray and yellow American racing colors draped his coffin at Trinity Episcopal Church in Upperville. (His horse racing colors... Upperville, Virginia.) .... The church was jammed, and the internment was thronged with family, friends from near and far, local farmers, and staff.  Dignitaries and colleagues, all old friends from institutions Paul had generously supported, were also there.

Both of Dorcas' children were there at Bunny's request and were given seats up front.  From father back, I could see my schoolmate Diana Hardin's red hair.  I did not see  Dorcas Hardin in the church, but John Baskett later told me she had been invited and had, correctly, declined.

***

Dorcas's obituary has no mention of Paul Mellon...WASHINGTON POST - January 20 2006 DORCAS HARDIN


EXCERPT: "Known for her sunny personality and her sense of style, Mrs. Hardin was described in a 1949 Washington Post article as the "best dressmaker designer" in the city. In 1954, when it was difficult to come by designer clothing in Washington stores, she decided to open an exclusive dress shop that would cater to the city's prominent women.

Her small, tony boutique, called Dorcas Hardin, opened on Dumbarton Avenue in 1954. She carried clothing by designers Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta, Ben Zuckerman, James Galanos and Pauline Trigere at a time when their creations were otherwise available only in New York."

***

As mentioned previously, Katharine Graham, the owner of the Washington Post, had threatened her reporters saying anyone who reported on the Paul Mellon - Dorcas Hardin affair.

Dorcas lived until 2006.  Rachael "Bunny" Lambert Mellon lived until 2014, She was one hundred and four years old!

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A note: Bunny outlived Dorcas

A SMATTERING OF BOOKS BY ANNE PINGEOT

LINK TO MUSEE D'ORSAY MUSEE d' ORSAY OFFICIAL SITE

FRANCOIS MITTERAUND to ANNE PINGEOT ON DISCRETION

TELEGRAPH CO UK: MITTERANDS PASSION FOR SECRET MISTRESS by Henry Samuel

"There will always be a speech, an election or a congress in the air.  I have fatigue, daily worry.  If you love me, you must try and make me happy.  And to make me happy is to make yourself more discreet."

INTERVIEW WITH ANNE PINGEOT in FRENCH

FRANCE CULTURE: INTERVIEW OF ANNE PINGEOT - in French

The article is in French and can be translated with Google translator.
It is titled "Anne Pingeot Confides to the Historian Jean-Noel Jeanneney."
There is also an audio option to listen to part of the interview - in French.

EXCERPT:  During this free, confident, exciting, sometimes joyful and sometimes serious conversation, Anne Pingeot and Jean-Noel Jeanneney go through a half-century of a great love story from the first encounter until the death of Francois Mitterrand.  They talk about everything, with modesty but without taboo: love and politics, culture and friendships, secret and Republic.  It is about happiness, surprises, exceptional moments but also difficulties, sorrows, and doubts. 


 

ART HISTORIAN ANNE PINGEOT MISTRESS OF FRENCH STATESMAN AND PRESIDENT FRANCOIS MAURICE MITTERRAND

One of the references for this month's posts, Philip Short's book on Mitterand, is well regarded.  Upcoming are links to articles about this book, YouTube videos, and information from general research on the internet.

Anne Pingeot: French Art Historian. A woman of personal accomplishment. Long time Mistress of an important man on the world stage.

She and their daughter came to Francois Mitterrand's State funeral, as did his wife of over 50 years and their children, and so a second family and long term Mistress who was known to his family, his inner circle, and the press (who had focused on his politics), became known to the world. Mitterand, not known for his warmth, was the the President of France for more years than any previous President - from 1981 to 1995. He lead a double life and was actually capable of great love and feeling.  His Mistress was so often on his mind, he wrote her letters, hundreds of them, and these letters were finally published and read with relish. Yet my feeling is that Anne is still an intriguing mystery, that there is and will long be more curiosity about her and their relationship than knowledge.  In search of information about Anne on YouTube, I found lots - but only in the French language.


Mitterand was born in 1916 and married his one and only wife, Danielle, in 1944. He died in 1996 from prostate cancer, which he had for years and also kept secret. It's said that keeping Mazarine Marie Pingeot, the daughter born in 1974 to Anne (when he had been married for 30 years), a secret, was the real reason behind some illegal wiretaps he ordered at one time. Mazarine appeared on the cover of  Paris Match (a bit like the old American Life magazine) a few months before he left office when she was twenty. So you could say that he chose to be discreet because he wanted privacy in his personal life, even with the attitude about affairs and Mistresses to be more liberal or open minded in France than in other cultures. Anne too is said to have loved her privacy.  But eventually, especially with a beautiful and intelligent daughter coming to age herself, their relationship had to come out.

Anne was 27 years younger than he. They met because her father and Mitterand both loved to golf.

According to the article that appeared on line from France 24 on 10/17/2016, a decade after his death (Which has a good photo of Anne and Mazarine at the funeral), and then 74 years old, Anne said that her parents were a couple generations behind the times when she was growing up in a farming region where the farmers were still using scythes. People were Catholic, Right-wing, and reactionary, She was 14 years old when her father brought around Mitterand who was only a year younger than him. Six years later they began an affair that lasted 33 years. Why was she speaking to the press after so many years of living so very privately? The book contains 1218 of them.

Though he had a wife and a Mistress, Mitterand also had affairs. Anne waited until Mitterand had been deceased for five years before she herself released the book of love letters, which you could say she curated, translating them as well for an English language edition.  As a French art historian, she specialized in sculptures done in the 1800's and was a curator at the Louvre, department of sculpture as well as st the Musee d'Orsay.  In her lifetime she has written a number of books on French sculpture.

According to an article in France 24, "But French respect for la vie privee (private life) is so sacrosanct that Pingeot's amazing story as the longtime mistress of France's first Socialist president in the Fifth Republic has been dismissed with a Gallic shrug. Powerful men, especially presidents, are almost expected to have mistresses, and Henry Kissinger's contention that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac" is taken quite seriously in France...", 

Anne is still alive as I write this.

Let's start the New Year with our Mistress of the Month, Anne Pingeot!

Missy

 *(Mazarine changed her name to Mazarine Marie Mitterand Pingeot. She is the mother of three children with a now-ex partner. Very well educated and literary herself, Mazarine is said to have been named after a favorite bookstore of her very literary parents, has published some of her own books, and works as a philosophy professor. 

FRANCE 24 : LOVE LETTERS OF MITTERAND
FRANCE 24: MITTERAND MISTRESS BLAMES SILENCE ON UPBRINGING 

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