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Marthe Bibesco (Martha Bibescu)

Writer, political woman

Born in Romania, in Bucharest, on January 28, 1886.

Girl of Jean Lahovary, politician and of Ema Mavrocordat, downward of a family with Greek roots. When Marthe is six years old, his/her father is named diplomat in Paris or it installs its family.

On its arrival in France, it already usually practised the French language. His/her mother, pianist, had a solid French culture.

Marthe married (when it was sixteen years old, in 1902) prince Valentine Bibesco, wire of Iorgu Bibescu and Valentine de Riquet, Comtesse of Caraman - Chimay, born at Menars, on February 15, 1839 died in Bucharest, on August 15, 1914 ex- wife of prince de Bauffremont).

She starts has to write her impressions of a voyage in Persia, made in company of her husband, impassioned aviator, representing of the Rumanian State to the crowning of the Shah.

Its tales are published under the name of “the Eight Paradise “(1903) delivers rewarded by the” French Academy”.

Marthe Bibesco will always present in the literary evenings like “Bibesco Princess”, seen the descents of her husband, but not them his.

During the First World War, Marthe Bibesco is torn between feelings different: she likes France, but nourishes a great affection in the “Kronprinz” wire of the emperor of Germany which she shelters for a few days in the palate of Mogosoaia.

The beautiful palate of Mogosoaia (located close to Bucharest) old residence of Prince Constantin Brancoveanu, who belonged to the family of her husband, Valentine Bibesco, was besides remakes thanks to its influences.

By attending the Parisian living rooms, Marthe Bibesco had the chance of the important meetings which influenced its literary destiny like that with Marcel Proust and the Mungier abbot.

Its life of family knew certainly syncopes and left the place to known the enough emotional relations, like this one with the Lord Thomson and Henry de Jouvenel.

Other books published like “Isvor, the country of the willows” works devoted to Romania, the Destiny of Lord Thomson of Cardington”, “green Parrot”, greeted with the appearance by the brothers Tharaud, max Jacob, and François Mauriac, (1924) frescos of the Russian mediums in exile, “an unknown girl of Napoleon” (Flammarion Edition).
Marthe Bibesco publishes an autobiographical novel “Catherine Paris” (1927), the test “With the ball with Marcel Proust” (1928).

What made the charm of Marte Bibesco was this mixture between elegance and the mondanity, the beauty of its writing, the with dimensions policy and the with dimensions artistic one of its writings.

“The buckled Traveller” published 1949, represents his correspondence with the duke of Guiche. “Noblesse de robe” it is a collection of articles appeared in” Vogue”. “Days of Egypt” 1929,” Crusade for the anemone” and “Holy Land Letters” 1930, written which follow to the voyages.

Under the pseudonym of Lucile Decaux, it launches out in the popular serial and afterwards in the scenario of cinema.
They will be, inter alia, “Marie Walewska” then “Katia”, immortalized with the cinema by Danielle Darrieux.

“Turquoise”, “Equality”, (1935,) tests. “Images of Épinal”, in 1937, and “Sheets of calendar”, (1939), are devoted to its fashionable and political relations.

In the same line, she “wrote texts having for subjects Élisabeth II, Churchill or Charles of Gaulle.
Marthe Bibesco often turned over to Romania, where it settled before the second war which surprises it in its country.

Dispossessed by its goods, confiscated by the communist capacity, it leaves Romania.
Its house (Elchingen Villa of the Palate of Mogosoaia) remains in the inheritance of the state with the condition of being used “with the interest of the artists”.

From 1945 Marthe Bibesco settles in Paris and devotes all her time to the writing. “The Confessor and the poets” present his epistolary exchanges with the abbot Mugnier, Cocteau, Valéry, Proust, Robert de Montesquieu and the poet English Barings.

“Exchanges with Paul Claudel” is a homage to an author whom it appreciated much.
“The Life of a friendship”, three volumes (1951-1957), is a work built starting from the correspondence which it received from the Mugnier abbot.

Marthe Bibesco is elected with the royal Academy of language and literature Frenchwomen of Belgium on January 8, 1955, at the same time as Jean Cocteau.

Literary and increasingly severe criticism with it, its books do not have any more success where they are not accepted any more by the directors of the publishers.

As Marthe Bibesco never discourages, it devotes the last years of its life to the project of a vast fresco in several volumes, related to the history of Europe “the Nymph Europe”, published in 1960, and “Where fall the lightning”, works posthumous, which will be born thanks to the effort of its executor, Michel Robida.

The Bibesco princess dies in Paris on November 28, 1973.
The biographical work of Ghislain de Diesbach (Academic Bookshop Perrin, 1986) entitled “the Bibesco Princess. 1886-1973.La last orchis” tells its life in a more neutral and objective way that his own works one makes.

Text: Cléopatra Lorintiu

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