Where the World's Happiest Married Couple Lives Today

Two years have passed since the Duke and Duchess of Windsor took up residence in the sumptuous mansion which the neighbors call "Bagatelle." This dwelling of twenty-five rooms, whose balconies look out over luxuriant gardens, was occupied for a time by General de Gaulle, and the Sultan of Morocco stayed in it for a spell when he took refuge in Paris in 1952. Everything in the house is arranged with an artist's taste, wrapped in a veil of the color blue — the color of the Duchess's eyes...

The two tastes have joined in choosing the furnishings and the sumptuous furniture; the Duchess lays her hand on her husband's shoulder with assurance, and he smiles at her a smile holding such harmony and understanding as promises still longer spells of this shared wedded bliss... The shadow of autumn flutters over the mansion: the lights are soft and quiet, the breezes gentle, and on the garden's carpet squat "Wisri" and "Troubir," the two friendly dogs, receiving the Duke and Duchess's many visitors — from whom the flood of happiness and the perfumed rapture filling the air cannot be hidden.

In 1953 the Duke decided to leave the mansion standing in the quarter of "Faisanderie," when his wife complained of the breadth of its spaces and its coldness; and two years later they bought, at "Gif-sur-Yvette," twenty kilometers from the capital, "Le Moulin Aubert." But they felt the need of a dwelling in Paris; and Edward and Wallis searched long for the palace of her dreams — they wished it gay and bright, ringed by a beautiful garden; and these conditions came together in "Bagatelle."

With his own hands the Duke laid out the garden paths and planted its flowers. The mansion has three garages for the couple's five automobiles; as for the servants, they number twenty-two, among them the slave Sydney, whom the Duchess brought with her from the "Bahama" islands, where her husband was governor after his abdication of the throne.

The Duchess says that home decoration is a mirror reflecting spiritual harmony; it is most necessary that it take a definite theme, and it is well that it suit the age of the house's inhabitants. In the pink marble room the visitors' gaze rests contentedly upon the furnishings and the paintwork; even the small pieces merge with the whole in a single spirit. The reception halls are adorned with Chinese objets d'art, and at their head hangs a large portrait of Queen Mary, mother of Duke Edward; and here too the color blue washes the air with vitality and softness.

The private suite of the Duke and Duchess is on the ground floor; the couple's rooms are joined by a corridor clothed in orange-colored silk, and on the staircase stands the banner of the Principality of Wales, which belongs to the Duke.

Edward and Wallis divide their time between "Le Moulin Aubert" and the mansion of the Bois; they often visit Paris, slipping into the parties and banquets that never cease, and not one night do they retire into seclusion. At "Gif" the Duke gives himself to hunting, his beloved pastime, in the quiet air of the woods and among the broad fields, where the Duke de "Brissac" and the Count de "Beaumont" accompany him; the talk usually turns on the planting of flowers, and the head gardener of those parts joins them in it. As for the Duchess, she is a housewife before all else: she herself supervises the menu daily with the chief of the kitchen, who is seventy years of age; she too adores flowers and scatters them into every corner of her house with skill and grace — the white lily is her favorite flower. She says with a smile: My house is not spacious, but I am happy that it is filled by a man who fills the skies of my world!...

And so "Bagatelle" breathes happiness: in it are a king who preferred love to the throne, and a woman he chose as the jewel at the heart of his life, and who remains at his side so that each completes the other — and they write the most magnificent love story history has ever recorded!...