Nancy Mitford - The Blessing

Introduction by Alex Kapranos

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First published by Hamish Hamilton 1951

Published in Penguin Books 1957

Reissued with a new introduction in this edition 2010

Copyright the Estate of Nancy Mitford, 1951

Introduction copyright Alex Kapranos, 2010

All rights reserved

The moral right of the introducer has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-195614-5

Nancy Mitford (190473) was born in London, the eldest child of the second Baron Redesdale. Her childhood in a large, remote country house with her five sisters and one brother is recounted in the early chapters of The Pursuit of Love (1945), which, according to the author, is largely autobiographical. Apart from being taught to ride and speak French, Nancy Mitford always claimed she never received a proper education. She started writing before her marriage in 1932 in order to relieve the boredom of the intervals between the recreations established by the social conventions of her world and had written four novels, including Wigs on the Green (1935), before the success of The Pursuit of Love in 1945. After the war she moved to Paris where she lived for the rest of her life. She followed The Pursuit of Love with Love in a Cold Climate (1949), The Blessing (1951) and Dont Tell Alfred (1960). She also wrote four works of biography: Madame de Pompadour, first published to great acclaim in 1954, Voltaire in Love, The Sun King and Frederick the Great. As well as being a novelist and a biographer she also translated Madame de Lafayettes classic novel La Princesse de Clves into English, and edited Noblesse Oblige, a collection of essays concerned with the behaviour of the English aristocracy and the idea of Uand non-U. Nancy Mitford was awarded the CBE in 1972.

Alex Kapranos is a singer and guitarist with the band Franz Ferdinand. His first book, Sound Bites, was published by Penguin in 2006.

To Evelyn Waugh

Adulterous aristocrats, social snobbery, petty national prejudice and an insidious infant Machiavelli, all wickedly sent up against a background of easy moral ambiguity this book was my introduction to the witty, wonderful Nancy Mitford.

When I told my friend Juliet, who loves Mitford, that I had enjoyed The Blessing, she was surprised, saying she wouldnt have thought of me as a Mitford fan. In a way, shes right. Im an accidental fan who didnt hunt her out, but stumbled across her. If Id known this was a gossipy tale of a bunch of poshos and their petty infidelities I probably wouldnt have picked it up, but a friend was reading an old sixties copy that had belonged to her mother. She kept putting it down every few pages to say Youre never going to guess whats happened now! That makes you kind of curious. So I did pick it up. It is one of those books, like a great soap opera, where the characters are so rich and absurd you want to gossip about them with someone else who is just as thrilled and aghast by their behaviour as you are. Its not dumb, though. There is a sharp sense of social insight and tantalizing glimpses of the emerging new world of post-war Europe. Most of all its funny. There are several incredible one-liners, particularly from the curmudgeonly Franco-phobic Nanny: one French name is very much like another, I dare say Never mind, dear, nobodys going to look at you (to the young bride at her wedding) Weve had nothing to eat. Course upon course of nasty greasy stuff smelling of garlic I wasnt going to touch it, let alone give it to Sigi; and from the sanguine free-loving Charles-Edouard.

Ive told you about Georgie in the Park? His mummy and daddy are divorced and he says its an awfully good idea you have a much better time all round, he says, when they are. Seven-year-old Sigismond is The Blessing and a wee monster a master-strategist, playing his parents off each other for his own gain. His mother, Grace, is beautiful, slightly dim and completely besotted with her husband, Charles-Edouard. Hes sophisticated and very French. Shes very English and mentally lazy. The theme of the book is pretty much that: the English are different from the French, so lets see what happens when we mix them up. There must be a certain amount of observation of her own surroundings in this, as Mitford was living in Paris at the time.

Grace has the air of a young Lady Di: pretty, but gauche the wilting English Rose, dropping her petals as shes cast into an urbane world of complex etiquette, social deception and competitive adultery that she doesnt really understand. But its not a tragedy, its a farce and its a fantastic farce. There are a couple of book-dropping scenes: the scrabbling for the Blessings blessing among his fathers mistresses (Look, look, Madame Novembre, cent lheure), the juvenile corruption and baby swap of the bring a child ball, but most spectacular is the grand reveal at the climax of the guided tour of the Fert house unlocking the door of Madame de Hauteserres bedroom with the exotic ceiling Here I am, I dont know you, yet I want to gossip with you about these people and what they get up to.

Mitford is a perfect guide, taking you on a tour of France in 1951. Rationing has been lifted and Dior is draping yards of fabric over the fashionable elite. Old feuds, temporarily suspended during wartime, are revived: Mignon, the Radical Socialist village chemist and Freemason, gives Catholic aristocrat Charles-Edouard a heros welcome in a moving speech on his return, but weeks later refuses to let his son play with Sigi because he is the offspring of a Catholic aristo. Collaborators are awkwardly assimilated Charles-Edouard dismisses his lawyer, but, typically, not for moral reasons but the two hours of self-justification before one can get down to any business. Theres no bore like a collabo in all the wide world. Then there is the new, uninvited, but loud, presence in Paris of the USA, personified by Hector Dexter, the pompous know-all diplomat, lecturing about teen culture, the virtues of American capitalism (a bottle of Coca-Cola on every table) and, generally, the problem with the French. Charles-Edouard, the very French thrill-seeking adventurer, sometimes bored by people, but never by life, makes it clear that he finds Dexter and his contemporary American attitudes boring. Dexter is too self-absorbed to notice. He is the greatest creation in the book, but so unbearable you are as thankful as any of the Parisian characters to be out of his company as soon as possible.