A Proper Stoic

Letters

Vol. 8 No. 10 · 5 June 1986

From Christopher Driver

SIR: As a footnote to John Bayley’s review (LRB, 8 May) – and since there is unlikely to be another biography of Duff Cooper coming along – it seems worth transcribing manuscript notes made on the end papers of my copy of Cooper’s Old men forget by the previous owner, Roger Senhouse. They suggest that the Paris Embassy under the Coopers was not, perhaps, the finest hour of British overseas representation:

Ed Stanley (Lord Stanley of Alderley) staying at Embassy in Paris has many stories, mostly belonging to the David Herbert saga and usually centring round his own drunken state:

Diana was out for the evening or away. The Ambassador said he must have a woman. Undisguised, they drove together to Mme X, Duff on the way asking about tariff and clearly prepared to haggle. 5000 was the sum fixed and Ed, not wanting to fusticate, sat and gossiped while D was at play. He returned outraged saying that the monetary arrangement had been violated, closely followed by his paramour, who demanded 10,000. Il m’a bissée, she hissed to the madame.

After a previous night, David came to warn Ed in the morning that his reception from Diana would not be comforting at breakfast.

Christopher Driver
London N6