Bibesco, Marthe Lucie (1887–1973)

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Bibesco, Marthe Lucie (1887–1973)

Rumanian novelist and essayist. Name variations: Princess Bibesco; (pseudonym) Lucile Decaux. BornMarthe Lucile Lohovary on January 28, 1887, in Rumania; died in Paris on November 29, 1973; daughter of Jean Lohovary (a minister for foreign affairs and president of the Senate) and PrincessSmaranda "Emma" (Mavrocordato) Lohovary (a collateral descendant of the Prince Mavrocordato); educated in France; married Prince George Bibesco (grandson of the Prince of Wallachia, now Rumania), in 1902.

Selected writings—novels:

Catherine-Paris (1928), The Green Parrot (1929), Balloons (1929), Worlds Apart (1935), Katia (1939). Non-fiction: (travel memoir) The Eight Paradises (1923), Isvor: The Country of Willows (1924), Royal Portraits (1928), Egyptian Day (1930), Some Royalties and a Prime Minister (1930), Lord Thomson of Cardington (1932), Crusade for the Anemone: Letters From the Holy Land (1932), Alexander of Asia (1935), A Daughter of Napoleon (1937), Flowers: Tulips, Hyacinths, Narcissi (1940).

Marthe Lucie Bibesco produced her first travel book at 18. During her career, she wrote numerous books under her own name and six historical novels under the pseudonym Lucile Decaux (only one of which, Katia, was translated into English). Authorship of these books was not acknowledged until Katia was made into a film. Bibesco wrote in French, although her books were translated into various European languages. Her love of gardening resulted in a book about spring flowers in 1940.

Born in Rumania, Bibesco lived most of her life in France. At 16, she married her cousin, Prince George Bibesco, and endured a devastating wedding night. From then on, the beautiful and cosmopolitan socialite spent most of her time away from her husband, dividing her time between Paris, a summer home at Posada in the Carpathians, and her husband's ancestral Palace of Mogosoëa in Rumania.

Highly praised for her novels and travel books by critics such as Anatole France and Marcel Proust, she was best known in England and America for her reminiscences of titled and diplomatic circles. Princess Bibesco had a long string of admirers—relationships that were romantic and intellectual rather than physical—that included a king of Spain, a crown prince of Germany, a British prime minister, and a premier of France. One critic called her interest in royalty "that of a commoner" and added, "Unlike most aristocratic authors, Princesse Bibesco writes well." When she died in Paris in 1973, she was essentially destitute. Marthe Bibesco is survived by 65 volumes of her manuscript diaries.