THE PRINCESS ANNE-MARIE GHIKA OF ROUMANIA and STAYING IN AN UNHAPPY MARRIAGE

EXCERPTS page 202-203 

It's 1926 and Liane de Pougy has left her husband, Prince Georges Ghika of Roumania. Throughout the book she does have many complaints about the man, who is fifteen years younger than she and seems to be, by my way of thinking, mentally ill, and was alcoholic. Nathalie as below is Natalie Clifford Barney.

October 18

... As soon as I arrived in Paris, in Margot's  charming little flat, I called Nathalie who came to me, affectionate and approving: "You have done the right thing, Liane, I am so glad. You must keep it up....' She held me in her arms, listened, advised, sent flowers, took to the Duchess's, showed me the sweetest and most compassionate tenderness.  My friends rallied around, adorable to me and indignant at Prince Ghika, saying "It's abominable!  How could he fall so low! You were his whole truth.  He will be sorry - but don't ever take him back!  He was such a bore; he got on everyone's nerves' he diminished you." I heard endless versions of this.  In short I was made much of, comforted, smothered in flowers, almost celebrated.  Jean Cocteau came, very shocked, to pour out calming words, floods of healing poetry with which to express my agony.  As he will also come, I hope, to sing my deliverance.

... And Nathalie was there.  I - who am so scared of her thunder and also so afraid of doing her the least harm because through it all I love her deeply - this is what I did or rather had done to me, because nothing was started by me except a loyal and determined struggle in which I was defeated because my Mimy is here, she's asleep in the room next to mine as I write these words and I shall soon be going in to kiss her awake.  (She means Mini Franchetti

Nathalie, sitting  by my bed one day: 'Liane, the one I love is waiting outside. You are so beautiful, you have been so great, so admirable, may I bring her in to see you for a moment so that she can contemplate you, so that you can see her?' - 'Yes,' I said without much interest. 'Bring her in, go and fetch her.' And in she came, tall, slender, white as a magnolia flower, her enchanting gestures so graceful, small, rare, precise, fiery eyes, and almost unreal fineness.  She bent over me, over my cruel suffering. Natalie smiled.  It was Nathalie herself who prepared her own fate.

We talked. I told my pitiful story to Mimy. She didn't say a great deal. Nathalie wanted them both to carry me off to the country....

______

Liane and Mimi got involved with each other, and Nathalie became jealous.

______

EXCERPT: Page 213

Mimi Franchetti was dreadfully unhappy when I left her.  I was unhappy,  Our sensuality had its dear little habits.  I tore all that up in one minute.  ______

Liane's divorce proceedings continued.  

EXCERPT: Page 215  ... 

"Georges tells me that he adores me, that he can't look at me without wanting to burst into tears (and there are tears in his eyes), and that he is unable to control himself any longer.  He begs me to shut him up in a mad-house, or to kill him,  It is a complete disaster.   ______

My notes: It seems that sex is part of their problem.  He wants to have an open relationship and to have other women, including going to prostitutes.

Liane, who had been raised Catholic, returned to the faith of her upbringing in her later years.  Her connection with Mother Marie-Madeleine of the Faithful Company of Jesus had a long history to it. The Nun had known Liane, then Anna-Marie, since she was an eight year old. The aging Courtesan had confided in Mother Marie-Madeliene that she was miserable in her marriage and the nun advised her that taking back her husband was the best thing to do because it was a renouncement of self.  In 1928 Mother Marie-Madeleine died. 

Liane became an active Catholic, doing confessions and communions. Prince Georges was a non-believer.  However in 1935 the couple celebrated their 25 years of marriage, a Silver Jubilee. The Prince died in 1945 and the Princes outlived him about five years.

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Note October 17th... Alas, sometimes editing does not work...  At least we noticed it fairy early into this post...

MY BLUE NOTEBOOKS - AN INTIMATE JOURNAL by LIANE DE POUGY aka PRINCESS GHIKA OF ROUMANIA

 Liane De Pougy authored a few novelesque books in her time, including one in which the thinly disguised Natalie Clifford Barney was portrayed.

This book covers a period from 1900 to World War II when the famous Paris courtesan, born in 1869 and married to her Prince, who was fifteen years younger than she, was getting older.  She reports needing eyeglasses and a cane and having a number of ailments including colitis.  Princess Anne-Marie Ghika of Roumania, as was her title then, died in 1950 and at that time was associated with a nunnery devoted to taking care of severely disabled children.

The book was published after Liane De Pougy's death and is a diary.  

Here are excerpts from pages 14-15-16 of the Introduction by R.P. Rzewuski.  (He was a priest she admired and befriended.) 

"To everyone's amazement the career of 'the most beautiful courtesan of the century' came to an abrupt end while still at its most brilliant.  Her marriage to Prince Georges Ghika (who was younger than herself) was announced.

Once she was a Princess, Liane had the good taste never to parade the fact.  Besides which, her relationships with her husband's family would hardly have allowed it, because they never fully accepted her.  By the same token she was never able to create an authentic place for herself in society."

Liane sincerely wanted to consign the years of her worldly success to oblivion, and even to forget them herself.  Forget the princes, the grand-dukes, the politicians the financiers who had heaped their crowns, fortunes, celebrity, and talent as her feet  That world, however, continued on in its way and was neither able or willing to forget her and - cruel as it can be sometimes be - it did not do so.

___

What more can I say about her? Some two tor three years after we met in Lausanne, on the death of her husband***, she confided in me her desire to be received under the name of Sister Anne-Marie into the Order of Saint Dominic, as a tertiary lay sister. ***

***Prince Georges Ghika of Roumania died in 1945

*** The Dominicans are nuns who are cloistered and live contemplative lives.  A lay sister is not a person who lives cloistered but in the regular world, but is still devoted to their religious beliefs.