Definitely in the water. It is with a half-bottle of Evian that Diane de Beauvau-Craon, 66, welcomes us to the first floor of the Flore, sunglasses and black clothes enhanced with colorful jewelry and a red lipstick that reminds us that life can be joyful. Since 2002, she has not touched a drop of alcohol, after literally almost dying. With its baby bird silhouette – eating never has “interested” –she has a crazy look: straight and elegant bearing, close-cropped hair, bewitching hoarse voice and a diction that sings the particle and good manners.
If she chose this institution of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, it is because she has great memories there. It was at Flore that she met Jacques de Bascher, the great love of Karl Lagerfeld, whom she shared for a time with him. Diane and Jacques then formed a couple of crazy and stoned night owls who certainly did not imagine it possible to order a bottle of mineral water in a café. She was already rebellious and cameo, spectacular and unbearable, to the point that one day the couturier called his father to tell him to “hold your daughter”. A rich little girl who very early felt that she had other things to do with her life than wait with her silver spoon in her mouth until someone found her a rich and boring husband.
To say that Diane de Beauvau-Craon grew up in opulence would border on dishonesty. The lady’s ancestry goes beyond anything ordinary mortals can imagine. His father, Prince Marc de Beauvau-Craon, came from one of the most illustrious families of French nobility. He inherited a castle with 365 windows in Haroué, Lorraine, where little Diane spent part of her summer vacation. On the maternal side, we reach heights of money and luxury to put all the Kardashians in the world shabby. On her mother, Cristina Patino, who is nothing less than the daughter of the king of tin in Bolivia, that is to say one of the masters of the post-war world, she has these unkind words: “She would have done better to abstain from having children and, incidentally, from marrying my father. » She nevertheless specifies that she does not hate her: “I don’t know her, actually. My parents divorced when I was little and my mother did not want custody. »
get out of the way
In his lively book, Without dividing (Grasset, 320 pages, 22 euros), whose title is the motto of her paternal family, she recounts the magnificence of her childhood memories when Miss Baker, her English nurse, accompanied her from castle to castle. In Portugal, where grandfather Patino welcomes him to his vast estate every August, the children drive to the main house, are not allowed to lift a finger and change clothes four times a day. : for the horse, the swimming pool, the tennis, the bowling, not to mention the smocked dress to go and bow to the ladies. One hundred people are at the service of the family and the guests who are lounging around the swimming pool, a veritable work of art made up of mosaics. In a secret cupboard, the grandfather piles up the Hermès crocodile or ostrich bags that he gives to his “good friends”.
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