The Horror of Love

How could I resist a wonderful title like The Horror of Love, especially when it deals with my favourite Mitford sister, Nancy? Lisa Hilton's 2011 book deals with the long love affair between Nancy and her 'Colonel,' Gaston Palewski, better known to readers of The Pursuit of Love as Fabrice de Sauveterre, a portrait in which Palewski delighted.

Hilton takes the refreshing view that Nancy was not the humiliated, put-upon victim of Gaston's negligence; rather, she argues that theirs was a very adult, very French relationship, and that the fact that Palewski had many liaisons and ended up marrying someone else never altered their essential bond. She notes that Palewski invited Nancy to stay with him every summer while he was posted in Rome, they never lost contact, and I've always found it incredibly touching that he had a premonition to rush to her bedside and hold her hand just before she died.

I'm not sure that I entirely buy this very stiff-upper-lip attitude, but personally I do believe that Nancy made a conscious decision that a bit of the Colonel was better than none at all, and played her cards accordingly. Hilton is scrupulous in devoting equal time to her two protagonists, which means there is a LOT of French politics in this book; conversely, I didn't learn anything about Nancy that I didn't already know from previous biographies and letters, and surely no one is going to pick up The Horror of Love unless they are already a huge Mitford fan? Perhaps there are Palewski fans out there, but I seriously doubt it.