Teaching People Manners

one hundred pieces of literary criticism. A contemporary and close friend of Virginia Wolf, Mansfield is widely considered to be one of the greatest short story writers of the early twentieth century, and still one of her most intriguing pieces of writing came in the form of a very brief, very simple letter. Here it is in its entirety, sent in March of nineteen twenty one. Dear Princess Bibesca, I'm afraid you must stop writing these little love letters to

my husband while he and I live together. It is one of the things which is not done in our world. You are very young, won't you ask your husband to explain to you the impossibility of such a situation. Please do not make me have to write to you again. I do not like scolding people, and I simply hate having to teach them manners. Yours, sincerely, Catherine Mansfield. It's hard to imagine any work of fiction or book review coming close to that in terms of sparking interest in

so few sentences. It's so perfectly eloquent and mean in equal measure. I do not like scolding people, and I simply hate having to teach them manners perfect It sounds like something from a lost Noel Coward play or a Miranda Priestly speech that ended up on a cutting room floor, But equally intriguing, at least in my mind, is the recipient a princess. It's hard to imagine a royal being

the recipient of such elevated and eloquent shade. And so who was Princess Elizabeth Bibesco and how did she find herself on the wrong side of the early twentieth century literati. I'm Danish Schwartz, and this is noble blood. The story of Princess Elizabeth Bibesco is not so much a rags to riches story, but rather a privilege to more privilege story.

Her father was h. H Asquith, a man who was from more humble beginnings but who rose through the ranks of Parliament to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom when Elizabeth was eleven years old. Life as the Prime Minister's daughter thrust her into the spotlight, and Elizabeth quickly

grew to love it that way. Her keen intelligence and social grace made quite an impression on the adults around her, and she was fearless in leveraging her position for the greater good as well as for a little extra attention of her own. When she was twelve years old, Elizabeth enlisted playwright George Bernard Shaw to write a play for a charity benefit, which she herself directed. By her teenage years, her charm and philanthropy were topics of discussion in national newspapers.

During World War One, a teenage Elizabeth wrote and performed in live shows for the troops. She also organized fundraisers to help out with relief efforts. She even acted in two silent War movies directed by D. W. Griffith. If she were alive today, she would probably be characterized correctly as a NEPO baby it girl. Elizabeth quickly became known among London high society as a spirited young multi hyphenate who as we'd soon see inherited her family's talent for

social climbing. Antoine Bibesco was a Romanian prince and diplomat who, by nineteen eighteen had found himself part of the social circle that included Elizabeth's father, Lord Asquith. At the time, he was forty years old and in a serious relationship, but when he met the dazzling twenty one year old daughter of the then former Prime Minister, Bibesco's attentions shifted entirely.

Elizabeth's mother, Margot Asquith, was thrilled by the match. She saw in Antoine the kind of continental sophistication her own family lacked, with breeding that far exceeded those from her own family. She also hoped he would have a calming effect on her daughter, who'd already packed a lot of life into her twenty one years. Elizabeth and Antoine were married on April twenty ninth, nineteen nineteen, witnessed by a

who's who of British royalty and culture. Everyone from Queen Mary to Elizabeth's old collaborator George Bernard Shaw was in attendance. It was a union that would catapult Elizabeth from the daughter of a politician into actual European royalty and all the glamour that came with it. The newlyweds settled into life in Paris, taking up residence in the Bibesco family townhouse. It was here that Elizabeth would give birth to their

only child, a girl named Priscilla, in nineteen twenty. It was also the place where she would be initiated into a world world far more sophisticated than even her privileged upbringing had prepared her for. The Bibescoe family moved in rarefied circles, their Parisian salon, drawing the most celebrated artists and writers of the era. At its center was Antoine's mother, Helene Bibesco, renowned hostess and patron, who turned their home

into a gathering place for the intellectual elite. Among the regular visitors was none other than Marcel Proust, who had formed a close friendship with Antoine long before Elizabeth had even entered the picture. Preust became utterly enchanted by the new Princess Bibesco, declaring her to be quote probably unsurpassed in intelligence by any of her contemporaries. He was also taken by her physical beauty, comparing her to a figure

in an Italian Fresco. The author, a discerning recluse who rarely ventured from his home, would make late night visits to the Babesco townhouse, discussing literature with Elizabeth and gossiping with Antoine. Elizabeth had clearly found her footing in this world of letters and high society, but not to everyone in the literary world was quite so taken with the vivacious young princess. While she'd mastered the art of captivating influential men, she had also begun to make some rather

powerful enemies of their wives. To understand what would compel someone to write the scathing letter I read in this episode's introduction, Let's take a look at the woman behind the pen. By nineteen twenty one, the New Zealand author Catherine Mansfield had established herself as a strong voice in modern literature, dealing with topics like existentialism, sexuality, and her relationship to Christianity. She moved to London at age nineteen and found herself in the orbit of the Bloomsbury Group.

Virginia Wolf became a close personal friend, and, like her more famous author friend Catherine's personal life was decidedly unconventional. She had romantic relationships with both men and women. Like many of her age, she struggled with her attraction for women. By the time her path crossed with Princess Babesco's. Katherine Mansfield was married to a man, J. M. Murray, a

literary editor and critic. Their relationship had been rocky from the start they met in nineteen eleven, and by the time they finally married in nineteen eighteen, they had gone through a string of breakups and reconciliations, with both Katherine and Murray pursuing other lovers during their times apart. They were the early twentieth century equivalent of that toxic couple who couldn't seem to quit each other, as much as their friends might have wanted them to. There was also

a third member of their relationship, Catherine's failing health. In nineteen seventeen, she had been given a diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis, and by late nineteen twenty the disease was steadily claiming more of her strength and mobility. She spent long stretches away from London seeking treatment in warmer climates, while Murray remained at home, ostensibly focused on his job as editor

of a literary magazine called The Athenaeum. Katherine, isolated by illness and sometimes geography, remained emotionally dependent on Murray, even as she knew he was incapable of fidelity. Her letters to him revealed that she clung to an idealized version of him even as evidence mounted against her faith. Because even though Murray stayed behind for work, he also found plenty of time for extracurricular activities. That's where Princess Bibesco

comes in. During this period, Elizabeth Bibesco's own writing career was on the rise. She was eager to be recognized as a serious literary figure in her own right, a drive that started with those preteen stage productions and only grew stronger over time. This led her directly to J. M. Murray's orbit when she began submitting stories to The Athenaeum. What started as a professional relationship quickly became something far more personal. It's worth noting that infidelity wasn't exactly foreign

territory for the Bibesco marriage either. Prince Antoine had already earned himself quite a reputation around London as what the writer and critic Rebecca West memorably called a boudoir athlete. West, who had her own brief affair with the prince in nineteen twenty seven, recalled looking around the room at a French embassy party and realizing that every woman present had

been Antoine's mistress at one time or another. No doubt, Elizabeth Bibesco felt entitled to some romantic adventuring of her own. But for Catherine Mansfield, watching from her sick bed in the South of France, the betrayals were becoming impossible to ignore or forgive. The situation reached a breaking point in December nineteen twenty when Catherine's doctors insisted that for her health she stopped the exhausting work of writing reviews for

her husband's literary magazine. Left with nothing really to distract her, Catherine's attention turned to Murray's affairs, particularly the one with Elizabeth Bibesco. Catherine was forced to confront the humiliating reality that her husband, in this case, was conducting something much worse than merely a physical affair. The Princess was positioning herself as a literary partner, asking for advice and guidance in ways that must have felt like a direct attack

on Catherine's own professional relationship with her husband. The final straw came in early nineteen twenty one, when Catherine intercepted one of Elizabeth's letters to Murray, a breathless plea begging him to quote resist Catherine and reminding him that you

swore nothing on earth should ever come between us. The letter revealed not just the depth of the affair, but Elizabeth Bibesco's apparent belief that she was engaged in some kind of romantic rescue mission saving Murray from his invalid wife. Catherine's response was swift, devastating, and deserved. Let's hear it again, shall we? It is just almost too good, Dear Princess Bibesco. I'm afraid you must stop writing these little love letters

to my husband while he and I live together. It is one of the things which is not done in our world. You are very young, won't you ask your husband to explain to you the impossibility of such a situation. Please do not make me have to write to you again. I do not like scolding people, and I simply hate having to teach them manners your sincerely, Katherine Mansfield. Only a truly gifted writer could have crafted something so glacially

polite that's also filled with verily contained fury. Clearly, the Missive was designed to put the passionate young Princess in her place, but Catherine wasn't finished. She followed up with a second, longer response that revealed even more about the state of mind and her philosophy about love, arts, and authenticity. The aftermath of those letters sent ripples through London's literary circles.

Virginia Wolf, always one to enjoy a good bit of gossip, wrote about what she called the Bibesco scandal, with which London so they say rings. She described dinners where a miserable Murray poured out heart, insisting that his affair with Elizabeth meant nothing to him, all the while declaring his absolute devotion to Catherine. Mansfield meanwhile described the Princess to William Gerardi, an up and coming novelist, as quote a

most dreadful young person, very very emotional. It's really a shame we didn't have reality television back then, because this friend group was churning out vander pump Rule's levels of drama For Catherine, the confrontation represented something larger than just marital strife. Her isolation and suffering due to her chronic condition helped to realize what was most important to her writing.

Perhaps her husband's affair with Elizabeth Bibesco wasn't just a betrayal to their marriage, but a threat to her entire literary world. Maybe she found the brazenness of the Princess just to be a bit of a bridge too far. Maybe she was repelled by the passion of someone boldly declaring what they wanted with no thought given to the feelings of others. Or maybe she simply didn't care for

Elizabeth Babesco's writing. Regardless of her exact reasons, Katherine Mansfield gathered the accumulated fury of her life's misfortunes and aimed straight for the Princess. The fact that we have the letter at all suggests that she made a copy and possibly shared it with a close friend or two. I can certainly understand that, after all, who hasn't sent a friend screenshots of a particularly juicy text conversation, especially when

someone is so articulate and so in the right. For Katherine mansfield life post letter was spent in search of a Hail Mary miracle cure for her tuberculosis. Her final years became a pilgrimage through alternative therapies and spiritual remedies, each one promising what the last had failed to deliver. This quest ultimately led her to the Institute for the

Harmonious Development of Man in Fontainebleau, France. This was the most outlandish place she'd tried yet, a transcendental commune of sorts under the guru like leadership of a man named George Gurjeff, a mystic, spiritual teacher and choreographer. If that sounds like a cult, well you're not wrong. Her days were full of hard labor, with little food and little sleep, but Catherine was convinced she had found something transformative. Sadly she was right, though not in the way she had hoped.

Catherine died of a pulmonary hemorrhage just three months after arriving at the Institute, sparking an immediate controversy about whether the Institute's extreme regimen had accelerated her death. She was just thirty four years old, in a final indignity that somehow seems fitting for her turbulent relationship, her husband J. M.

Murray forgot to pay her funeral expenses. This resulted in Catherine being buried in a pauper's grave before the oversight was corrected and her remains could be moved to a more suitable resting place. Her death left Murray with the considerable task of editing and publishing the mountain of work she left behind, including two volumes of short stories, a novel, a collection of poems, and more. In death, Catherine's voice

would reach far more readers than it ever had in life. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Bibesco was continuing to build a literary career of her own. In nineteen twenty one, she published her first collection of short stories, entitled I Have only Myself to Blame. The Princess drew inspiration from the glittering Parisian society she now called home, capturing what one critic would later call the quote buoyant charm, nonchalant wit, and sparkling decor of

a rarefied world. Though others would find her writing superficial, all glamour and no depth, she was a prolific writer, publishing novels, plays, short story collections and more. Over the course of the next two decades, her work garnered international attention, and she even had a novel serialized in The Washington Post. Yet despite her productivity a lie, Elizabeth found herself perpetually

dismissed by the literary establishment. The tensions that had erupted over the Mansfield Murray affair crystallized a broader cultural divide between the Bloomsbury intellectuals with their serious modernist sensibilities, and Elizabeth's more fashionable, continental approach to both life and marriages and literature. In the nineteen thirties, the Princess reached out to Virginia wolf for support while putting together an anti fascist exhibition in London, HARKing back to her teenage tenure

as a wartime organizer. Elizabeth drew from her well of celebrity contacts, but Virginia Wolfe was no George Bernard Shaw. Wolf was suspicious of Elizabeth's politics, particularly around feminism, or she called it the woman in question. After a brief terse exchange, Wolfe made it clear that in her view, the Princess remained as shallow and politically naive as ever, there's no denying Elizabeth Bibesco made enemies during her life, but her writing deserves to be evaluated on its own terms.

Her work serves as a snapshot of a specific time in history, a breathy, deceptively sincere counterpoint to the Bloomsbury Group's existentialism. Years later, the English writer Elizabeth Bowen would write a more generous assessment of Bibesco's writing than many of her contemporaries. She noted that Elizabeth Bibesco's characters quote seemed to be the inhabitants of a special millieu in which the more ordinary taboos of feeling and breaks on

speech do not operate end quote. Elizabeth wrote of privileged people with big feelings, people who came through the First World War utterly changed and unsure where they fit in. Those who survived became obsessed with the minutia of everyday life, taking nothing for granted. Her characters followed their hearts just as she had in real life, with all the fallout

that came along with it. In the end, perhaps the real tragedy isn't that Elizabeth Bubesco was dismissed by her more serious literary contemporaries, but that she was born into the wrong era. Entirely in our current age of social media and personal branding. Her instinct for self promotion and her talent for turning life into art might have made her a sensation. Instead, she found herself caught between two worlds. A princess who wanted to be taken seriously as an

artist in an age that solemn intellectualism. A girl called out and ostracized for an affair in a circle where it was nearly the norm. Catherine Mansfield no doubt got the last word in their famous exchange, but hopefully history has softened a bit on Princess Bibesco, a woman whose greatest crime may have been saying the quiet part out loud. That's the story of Princess Elizabeth Bibesco, But keep listening after a brief sponsor break for a bit more of

the Princess's glamorous life. Throughout her literary career, Elizabeth Bibesco maintained a second job as ambassador's wife. She remained married to Antoine Bibesco, despite his affairs and hers for the entirety of her life, and the Bibescoes moved around with Antoine's work work, first to Washington, d C and later Madrid. When World War II began, the family returned to Romania, where Elizabeth would spend her final years. She died in nineteen forty five at just forty eight years old, and

was buried in the Bibesco family graveyard. Her grave is inscribed with the last line of one of her collections of poetry, My soul has gained the freedom of the night. It's the perfect inscription and one last reminder to her lifelong commitment to main character energy. Perhaps the most telling detail about Princesses Bibesco's life comes from her obituary in

The New York Times. Quote, she narrowly escaped death in nineteen twenty eight when an airplane in which she was making a tour of Near East relief work crashed on a rocky beach in Greece. The plane somersaulted three times, ching passengers over a cliff into the sea. End quote. This, to me is one of the most compelling arguments for a more empathetic reframe of the Princess's life. She wasn't just an architect of chaos. Sometimes the drama sought her out.

Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannaswick, Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and Julia Milaney. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producerrima Ill Kaali and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick.

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