The Princely Pulse / Titles
Schonburg, Alexandra
THE PRINCELY PULSE TITLES by Alexandra Schtinburg D uring my early twenties, I thought little of being serious. I really did not know what the word meant. But I did know that being outrageous was...
...Yet titles can be wonderful...
...It doesn't work as well the other way around...
...Frequently, when she rents a car with a driver, she pays in cash...
...I do, sometimes, but only on Sundays, and unfortunately, I am leaving Saturday...
...Soon thereafter, Monsieur Mouton bought a castle for weekends during the shooting season...
...The little girl with the title is very much like little girls anywhere, except that, for her, bad thoughts are harder to think, bad feelings guiltier to feel, bad habits harder to forgive...
...I would think with great amusement of the Prince of Wales, for example, who, while on an official visit to the court of Franz Josef and Elizabeth at the turn of the century, hurled chairs through the closed window, simply because he'd found the room stuffy...
...He was wearing silk pajamas, the pockets of which were embroidered in gold with his initials and his crown...
...She knew that a title made you glamorous and exotic and that it opened doors...
...My response, though out of line, came with a certain candor, but earned no admiration...
...In the days when crowns really mattered so did courtesans...
...And so I have learned it's better to have a title than to be a movie star...
...All during this time, Monsieur Mouton was learning again how to speak...
...Their gracious portraits adorned the walls...
...for him, the idea of a title held no ambivalence...
...But I use it only at the hairdresser and in restaurants...
...What would the checkout girl at the supermarket think of a credit card saying "Princess," printed in thick black letters...
...Titles are romantic...
...But, to be born to it is quite another story...
...For you're born with a title...
...The results of his labors provide invaluable guidelines to any similarly ambitious person...
...The table fell silent...
...Moreover, houses should not be bought but inherited...
...You could spy their tails flitting and wagging around the trim herb borders of the French gardens...
...You don't have to "make it," you've got it made from birth...
...He practically acquired a new vocabulary...
...And he never made a mistake...
...he watched his words...
...C ocially, of course, using one's crown is a sure way to intimidate others, especially those easily intimidated...
...But my European mother is different...
...Instead, I caught a glimpse of the Duke's room, its door also momentarily ajar...
...Some years later, I fielded a far more innocent question on this same subject...
...They did enjoy their country seat, so important, the Count recognized, for a true gentleman...
...And that, perhaps, I was becoming too old to get away with it...
...His house, next to the Duke de Noaille's, was smaller than his neighbor's but perfectly proportioned, with a garden and a sixteenth-century courtyard...
...you could see their little sharp teeth snapping at the fine ankles of the female guests...
...Does he take her title seriously...
...It was, in fact, a downer...
...and the driver, who has known her for years, never fails to take off his hat and, to her delight, greet her with a loud "Princess...
...He took pains to address his wife, and also his children, in the third person...
...Though not, alas, to the manor born, he cherished the loftiest social ambitions...
...Now a firmly established aristocrat, Monsieur le Conte de Mouton de Bayeul gave a splendid ball to celebrate his new status, for he well knew that balls are to the nobility what parties are to commoners...
...At least, so untitled folk think...
...Then, after amassing several more millions, he added to the "de Mouton" the title of "Count," and for another extra fillip, the additional "de Bayeul...
...The first morning, I was barely awake, lying in my canopied bed, when a chambermaid came in...
...I disappeared under my pillows, thrilled and embarrassed at the same time...
...If those girls find it hard to grow up, to come to terms with reality, consider the difficulty a princess faces, particularly a twentieth-century princess...
...Well," I said, "my family held thattitle in Austria, when there was an Emperor...
...This gleaming crown also reappeared, same embroidery, on the linen sheets covering his wife's bed...
...Did the Duke suffer from a fear of forgetting who he was...
...Yes, sir...
...Of course, the use of titles shifts with the times...
...Of course...
...And he made sure to hire the right decorators...
...PRINCESS MARRIES GARDENER...
...That such formalities still existed, in a day and age when the Queen of England is only a wax doll at Madame Tussaud's...
...In the old days, people withtitles, sometimes with several, would change their names when traveling, leaving off all titles, trying to be less visible, more discreet...
...Every such headline increases a newspaper's readership...
...Those marvelous tales are, after all, about her...
...But twentieth-century princes become twentieth-century husbands—and I need not tell you what that means...
...His conversations never directly mentioned money or possessions, but subtly, oh, so subtly, they were included, almost as an aside, reduced to their proper place in a variety of subordinate clauses...
...It's a beautiful day...
...The servants, naturally, lived in a cottage...
...Of course, before giving that ball, he'd found the right place to live, an old house on the rue St...
...Once, when I was 20, a famous American actor I'd met briefly called me at home...
...She even had a 16-karatgold crown encrusted on her handbags, which are otherwise rather banal accessories...
...Then the maid placed a silver tray on my bed and up "we" sat, propped by a multitude of lace pillows, and had breakfast: fresh orange juice, crisp toast, soft-boiled eggs, and morning tea...
...And his Countess now spent many pleasant rustic afternoons embroidering petit-point pillows...
...During lunch at the home of some dear friends in Greece, their daughter, Atalanta, then 12, asked, "Are you really a princess...
...And something else: I realized that the Alexandra Schlinburg reigns from New York...
...For every such headline shows that dreams can come true, and dramatically, like the lottery...
...My American-born stepmother, on the other hand, thought titles oddly shameful...
...They make for romantic love stories...
...Good morning, your highness," she said, drawing open the curtains...
...She actually knows a number of handsome princes...
...So he devoted a few months to studying the ways of the aristocracy until he knew every variation of difference between the titled few and the wealthy commoners...
...As I recall, it took only a few years for everyone to forget Monsieur Mouton's original name...
...These days, however, people with common names will sometimes assume aristocratic names...
...So, do you still wear a crown...
...Would you be impressed by a courtesan using stationery engraved from Cartier's, saying, "From the bed of...
...Hastily, I retreated into my room, jumped back into bed, and wondered about what I'd just seen...
...Fortunately, some kind soul dove into the conversation and changed the subject...
...But I did know that being outrageous was fun...
...Efficiently, in what seemed a matter of hours, they gave the place an air of old money, filling it with 18th-century furniture which was said to have belonged to the Count's ancestors...
...My mother, aware of the call and of the invitation it held, gave me an icy stare when I hung up and said, "Don't forget, Alexandra, that you are a princess...
...Dominique, in the heart of Paris's privileged set...
...So, in one clever and fraudulent way or another, he got one and, say what you might, he worked hard for it, he earned it...
...Born a commoner, he knew what he wanted...
...he'd mention "the chauffeur's cottage," "the cook's cottage," "the chambermaid's cottage...
...I sometimes suspect he thinks she has a funny nickname...
...You're special right from the jump...
...She does not have to live in a particular world...
...Soon he added to his calling cards a "de" particule, giving his name a new and elegant ring...
...they especially make for romantic headlines: "PRINCE MARRIES AUPAIR...
...During the French Revolution, titled folk assumed common names, to avoid being beheaded...
...And I realized for the first time that outrageous behavior might not charm everyone...
...Or did wearing crown-embroidered pajamas in a canopied bed draped with mountains of 34 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1988 brocade calm his restless sleep, help him doze, soothe his otherwise unruly dreams...
...Just seeing that "Princess" stamped there would raise instant suspicions...
...Though I've frequently watched him going through this ritual, I honestly cannot say...
...A wise choice, for had he bought a modern apartment, the result would have been disastrous...
...This castle, essential for his endeavors, he named "Mouton Maltruite," after his new great-grandfather...
...My mother, who was not born to her title but married one, knew this very well...
...But is it all that impressive to the truly perceptive...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1988 35...
...On the grounds of the castle, only the dogs befitting an aristocrat ranabout, yelping, howling, leaping: King Charles spaniels, labradors, small wirehaired dachshunds and corgis...
...He kept his tone well modulated, the sound discreet...
...In France, I knew a rich and charming fellow called Monsieur Mouton...
...QUEEN GIVES UP CROWN FOR LOVE OF COMMONER...
...What fun he had, how well he managed his props...
...Language, he knew, could be a dead giveaway...
...Untitled little girls are innocent of these burdens and grow up believing, against all the evidence, that, as in those wonderful stories, they too will one day meet their prince, fall in love, live happily ever after...
...Oh, he was a clever one, Monsieur Mouton...
...Using his title would definitely close the doors she wanted open...
...Yes, there will always be death and there will always be taxes, and humankind being what it is, there will alwaysbe a mostly upwardly-mobile Monsieur Mouton...
...A man, I must confess, in some respects I envy...
...Modern," so subtle a word, means "new," but it also suggests "newly acquired," like "new money...
...Shortly afterward, I was in England where I happened to spend a weekend at the Duke of Marlborough's castle, Blenheim...
...whole notion of titles left me ambivalent...
...They—and particularly my father's—made her cringe...
...First, he married a beautiful young girl...
...Afterward, I got out of bed, opened the door of my room, and looked down the hall trying to find a newspaper...
...Of being dispossessed of his title during the night...
...One winter in Gstaad, a skiing resort reserved exclusively for the very rich and the "has beens" of the aristocracy, I was lunching with a large group of people when the ex-King of Greece, Constantine, turned to me and, making polite chitchat, asked, "Alexandra, do you use your title...
Vol. 21 • March 1988 • No. 3
