(4 of 6)
In Paris famed Mme Cécile Brunschvieg, No. 1 French feminist, only Jewess ever in the Cabinet (TIME, June 15, 1936) and Editor of La Française ("The French woman"), was keeping all her irons in the fire while nursing a sick child at home between intervals of work. She bounces out of bed early, attends to liaison between the Ministries of Health and Education, supervises social work among Paris slum children, edits her newspaper on busses or wherever she can open up her bulging portfolio, snorts cheerfully, "I have so much work to do there is no time to talk about it!"
Fashionably educated, airminded Jeanne Reynaud, wife of Finance Minister Reynaud, last week flew (see cut, p. 24) to North Africa for another womanly chore —to deliver a series of propaganda lectures.
Sparkling José Comtesse de Chambrun, daughter of onetime Premier Pierre Laval, was still more typical of the average French wartime wives, thousands of whom have taken over their husbands' businesses as well as their farms. She had taken over her husband's work of running the Paris Information Centre. Young Count René de Chambrun is a lieutenant on the Maginot Line. Like most wealthy Parisiennes. the Comtesse has also enrolled to drive her own sleek Hispano in emergency evacuation, succor wounded in case Paris is bombed.
Café Society & Couturieres. Ladies of café society in France, as elsewhere, are gayly extravert in war work. Thus the Hon. Mrs. Reginald ("Daisy") Fellowes, daughter of a French duke, onetime Princesse de Broglie and friend of the Duchess of Windsor, announced herself the marraine or "godmother" not of one French soldier — the usual thing — but of an entire battalion of Chasseurs Alpins (Blue Devils), traditionally agile and gallant French fighters: She sends them English blankets and every other sort of costly trench luxury, keeps her daughters madly knitting. Recently when "Daisy" visited her delighted chasseurs they did everything they could think of to show their gratitude, including a dash up among snow-crested crags to shoot chamois for her lunch. "The war has affected me in every way," gushed the Hon. Mrs. Fellowes last week. "I'm a European!"
Marraine to 200 French aviators is Mme Gabrielle ("Coco") Chanel, who now patriotically wears nothing but the French national colors — red, white & blue — but less patriotically has closed her famed Paris style shop. "I don't believe in sending just anything to my aviators!" cried Coco last week, explaining that she sends them only the finest English pullovers, stockings and gloves, each .neatly stamped in the corner "Chanel." Exactly opposite in type to Coco is that dignified great lady of the haute couture, Mme Jeanne Lanvin, first woman of her calling ever made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, famed creator in rich fabrics of the simple robes de style. Mme Lanvin says briefly, "Women should stick to what they do best." She was open for business last week, turning out mostly day dresses for women and special uniforms for French officers of the higher ranks.