Antoine Bibesco - Biography

Biography

His father was Prince Alexandre Bibesco, the last surviving son of the Hospodar of Wallachia. His mother was Helene Epourano, daughter of a former Prime Minister of Romania. Though raised at 69, Rue de Courcelles, in Paris, Antoine continued to oversee the Bibesco estates in Craiova until after World War II.

As a young man, his mother, Princess Hélène Bibesco's celebrated Paris salon gave him the opportunity to meet Charles Gounod, Claude Debussy, Camille Saint-Saëns, Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Aristide Maillol, Anatole France and Marcel Proust among many other notables. Both his father and mother commissioned artworks and music (most notably Edgar Degas and George Enescu) and Antoine continued this family tradition, particularly through his friendship with Vuillard.

Marcel Proust became a lifelong friend and shared a secret language in which Marcel was Lecram and the Bibescos were Ocsebib. Antoine made a concerted effort to have Proust's Du Côté de Chez Swann (in which, it is said, Bibesco was the model for Robert de St. Loup) published by André Gide and the Nouvelle Revue Française, but failed in that effort. Toward the end of Proust's life, Bibesco, who was a great raconteur, was an outside ear for the reclusive writer. Later he published Letters of Marcel Proust to Antoine Bibesco.

Bibesco, though not a prolific writer, was the author of a number of plays in French and had at least one American success. In 1930 his play Ladies All was performed on Broadway at the Morosco Theatre, running for 140 performances. He also translated Weekend by Noël Coward and Le Domaine by John Galsworthy into French.