Tonight, we had dinner at the Duchy of D’Uzes.
The Duc (duke) lives in the castle with his family (they were home, since his flag was waving from the top of the castle), and in order to finance its upkeep, he sometimes welcomes guests not only to his backyard, but also into one of his living rooms.
Paintings and photographs are displayed of each generation. The duchy is the oldest in France, going back to 1080 (when they were Seigneurs). You can see a recent picture of the current duc and his family. And their elephant tusks.
My favorite photograph in the collection is of the current duc’s mother, Elisabeth de Belleville.
You cannot believe the drama the previous generations of this family created in their lives. Many of the men married American heiresses. For example, Margaret Wright “Peggy” de Crussol, Duchess d’Uzes, was a Standard Oil (Exxon) heiress and married an American banking heir, then the Duke of Arenberg, then the Duke of France (that’s where Uzes comes in). If you read her Wikipedia page, you can’t even follow the story of her third husband’s marriages and his various royal titles and connections, but, believe it or not, her husband was related by marriage to David Brown, the movie producer who was married to Helen Gurley Brown of Cosmopolitan magazine. The couple also had homes in Paris, New York, and Morocco.
She died, only 45 years old, in a car accident after attending a ball.
The older I get, the more I realize how I frequently I visit places that look beautiful, but are, in reality, tragic.
yogadonna 
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