Belle of the Ball

Marie-Helene, Baroness de Rothschild, whose husband, Baron Guy de Rothschild, is dean of the French branch of the banking family, was well known in the world of fashion and was particularly renowned for the dinners, balls and benefits she organized. Many were held at Chateau Ferrieres, the former Rothschild mansion that now belongs to the French state. Her greatest triumph was the Proust Ball in December 1971, in celebration of the centenary of the reclusive author's birth. It was the most talked about party of that era. The guests came in costume and were photographed by Cecil Beaton. After Ferrieres was donated to the Government, the Baroness did most of her entertaining at her Paris residence, the 18th-century Hotel Lambert on Ile St.-Louis, where it was built by the court architect Louis Le Vau in 1642. The Rothschilds lived in a manner dubbed the "Rothschild style" - a mixture of Napoleon III, objects d'art, comfort and luxury. The Baron described his wife as having "a fabulous appetite for life, emotions always at their height, a spontaneity with a thousand facets, as ever-changing as the sea. And charm, which defies description."