Social Figure, Wife of Ambassador
In 1924, Duff Cooper gained election to Parliament, while his wife continued as a society celebrity. Her reputation became even more celebrated in France as the centerpoint of immediate post second world war French literary culture when her husband served from 1944 to 1948 as Britain's ambassador to France. During this period, Lady Diana's popularity as a hostess remained undimmed, even after allegations that the embassy guest list included "pederasts and collaborators".
Following Duff Cooper's retirement in 1947, they continued to live in France at Chantilly, until his death in 1954. He was created Viscount Norwich in 1952, for services to the nation, but Lady Diana refused to be called Viscountess Norwich, claiming that it sounded like "porridge". She made an official announcement in The Times to this effect, stating that she wished to be known as Lady Diana Cooper.
Read more about this topic: Lady Diana Cooper
Famous quotes containing the words social, wife and/or ambassador:
“It is thus that the few rare lucid well-disposed people who have had to struggle on the earth find themselves at certain hours of the day or night in the depth of certain authentic and waking nightmare states, surrounded by the formidable suction, the formidable tentacular oppression of a kind of civic magic which will soon be seen appearing openly in social behavior.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.”
—Bible: Hebrew Proverbs, 18:22.
“An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)