Giltter and Gold

The book for today's post is different that what I've written about before.  First, it's a memoir, an autobiography.  Second, it tells of a world that few will believe actually existed.  The Glitter and the Gold is the story of a young American girl forced to marry against her will.  With this marriage, she became one of the most powerful, but most unhappy women in the United Kingdom.  Divorce and subsequent annulment would finally allow her to live the happy life of her dreams.  In three sentences, it might seem as if I've told you the whole plot of the book, and in a way, I have, but this memoir is so much more.  It's a glimpse inside a changing world.

When I started work on my master's thesis in late spring 2015, I had no idea what I was going to do.  While my degree was in American Studies, I didn't find anything about American history really interesting.  My adviser, Dr. Jim Walsh, looked at me and said, "Tory, what do you find interesting?"  His point was, of course, that I would never be able to write a decent paper on anything that I didn't have a stake in.  I wouldn't be able to keep myself entertained enough to finish the research, let alone write the thesis.  Now, spring 2015 happened to coincide with the airing of the fifth season of Downton Abbey, a show that I loved and still love.  I told Jim that I thought it was interesting that an American woman would marry into the English aristocracy.  He told me to look into it and tell him what I found.

What I found was greater than I could have imagined at the time.  This idea of American women marrying European aristocracy led to enormous political, social and economic change, although I centered my research on the British Isles.  The Glitter and the Gold is one of the early books that I read about this period.  The world that a young Consuelo Vanderbilt grew up in was so different from the world that she occupied at the time of writing this book.  She lived through five wars, by the time of her death, two husbands, and three flags.  For years she lived without the protection of a country's citizenship, and she was sold into marriage by her mother.  And yet, in her memoir, Madame Balsan--After her divorce from the English duke, Consuelo Vanderbilt married a French Airman--does not really lay blame on anyone.  It's hopeful and informative.  It doesn't ridicule the crazy life lead by the aristocracy, but it gives an inside look.

Mme Balsan wrote The Glitter and the Gold in 1953, when she was 76 years old.  She says that she doesn't remember much of her youth, and that "there are no journals to help me--there are but the meagre notes of engagements made; the press cuttings of recorded events."  Despite this, there are a surprising number of intimate details, things that I don't think I could remember about my own life and I'm only 25!  Her narrative starts with her reminiscing about a painting that was done when she was three, that memory chosen because she's watching her young granddaughter play.  Unlike her granddaughter, at three Consuelo Vanderbilt was posing for a portrait.  This tale, which takes up all of a few paragraphs, illustrates the difference between the world Vanderbilt grew up in and the world that she knows.

One thing that really strikes me about this memoir is something that I mentioned before.  It's written without drama.  Of course, the events don't need any drama added to them, but Mme Balsan writes them as if they were simple events that happened.  It comes across as if she's writing nothing more important than what shirt she chose to wear for the day, or announcing that she's going on vacation.  She talks about visits with her cousin-by-marriage, Winston Churchill, when Churchill was still a boy.  There is no deference to the Lion Among Men that Churchill would become later.  Mme Balsan's story is laid out with beautiful simplicity.

I hope that this post makes at least a few of you read the story of this remarkable woman.  She was a major influence and helped to direct women's rights and status, with long reaching arms that are still visible today.  Beyond that, just the life that is lived by the upper class is fascinating and unbelievable.  The comparison of the aristocracy and the life she didn't choose as "glitter" with her life as the wife of a French airman as "gold" is also heartwarming.  It makes one smile.  True love will always win.