Ethel Merman, Mother Teresa...and Me. Tony Cointreau
daughters-in-law and fought a losing battle for dominance over her sons’ lives, since they had married strong women. To add to the conflict, the daughters-in-law didn’t get along with each other, either.
I remember when my father’s half-brother, Denis (the General’s son), married a young airline stewardess called Marie-Geneviève. The wedding reception took place on a beautiful summer’s evening at Château Brillant, and we were all delighted to welcome this pretty blonde lady into the family. By then Denis had become a doctor in Angers, only three kilometers away, so he and his new bride fixed up an apartment at Château Brillant where they could live year round.
The first summer they were in residence at Château Brillant, we arrived for our annual vacation to find that my grandmother and her new daughter-in-law were already at odds with each other. In time, especially after the General’s death in 1954, the petty squabbles turned into open warfare that involved us all.
All of the main bedrooms were on a long corridor that ran the length of the château. My grandmother’s room was at one end to the right of my room, and Denis and Marie-Geneviève’s suite was at the other end, on my left.
Since I had never been able to go to sleep easily, I usually stayed up late reading in bed after everyone else had retired. One night I heard footsteps quietly making their way past my room. Being of a curious nature, I went out into the darkened hallway and heard my uncle Denis’s voice coming from my grandmother’s room. I listened closely and was stunned to hear him try to convince his mother to leave him the majority of her assets, thereby leaving her other two sons, my father and Uncle Jean, out in the cold.
Denis also spoke about suitcases filled with gold coins that my grandmother had buried on the property before the Germans came. Maman Geneviève was the only person who knew where to find them—and he wanted them all.
As soon as I heard him say “Goodnight,” I sneaked back into my darkened room and got into bed. I didn’t make a sound as I heard his footsteps pass my door on the way back to his apartment and his wife. Then I turned on my light, wrote down everything I had heard, and hid the information behind a painting above my bed.
The next morning, I went to my parents’ room, told them what had happened the night before, and gave them the paper on which I had written down Denis and Maman Geneviève’s conversation. I figured what my mother and father did with it then was their business. That night, when I again heard footsteps going down the hall, I turned out my light and went back to listen in the hallway.
This went on for several nights. The scenario was always pretty much the same, and my grandmother, to my relief, remained as stubborn as ever, refusing to do what he asked—even when he threatened, “If you don’t do as I say, you will never have a day of peace for the rest of your life.”
On the last night of my vigil, I was back in my bed with the lights out when I heard him stop at my door and open it. I didn’t dare breathe. Then he quietly closed it and moved on to his suite.
At first, I couldn’t understand how he had become suspicious of my sleuthing. Then it became clear—his wife, Marie-Geneviève, must have been at the other end of the hallway, also listening to Denis’s conversation with his mother. I couldn’t see her in the dark because, unlike me, she had a small hallway to hide behind, and could have easily seen me the night before.
During the day, I always managed to be in the way when Denis tried to be alone with his mother and convince her to show him where the gold had been buried. Although nothing was said, it was evident that he was beginning to lose patience with my constant interference with his plans.
I never understood why, but that summer, I was often sick to my stomach at Château Brillant. One night I thought I was going to die from throwing up. The next morning, however, I seemed to rally, and even managed to keep down a little food.
After lunch, my parents had planned for the three of us to go and visit some friends from New York who were staying at Chenonceau. When I said that I might still be too sick to make the trip, my uncle Denis—the doctor—gave me some medicine and said that in his professional opinion, the very best therapy would be for me to go to Chenonceau with my parents that afternoon.
We had not driven far when I became even sicker than before. In retrospect, I wish my parents had turned the car around and returned home. Instead, I suffered during the entire trip, and lay in bed while they dined with their friends.
It was after eleven o’clock at night when we got home and I was able to crawl into my own bed. It was then that Maman Geneviève told my parents that while we were gone, Denis had finally persuaded her to give him the suitcases filled with gold coins. Now they were all his. I couldn’t believe it.
After everyone had gone to bed, my uncle Denis came back to my room, opened the door, stuck his head in, and with a big smile on his face said, “I knew you’d be sick if you went to Chenonceau today.”
My grandmother never gave in to Denis on his other demands, but no matter what she did, there was never going to be a happy atmosphere in the house after she gave him the gold.
All hell finally broke loose at luncheon one day when Denis’s wife turned on me for not having given her a straight answer to a trivial question she had asked me that morning. The truth was that by then I trusted no one and kept my mouth shut. When she began to berate me, my mother became irate. No one was allowed to attack her children, and no one I had ever met—certainly not the much younger Marie-Geneviève—was a match for my mother. Any pretense of family togetherness ended abruptly when my mother called Marie-Geneviève a “boniche de l’air,” which roughly translated means “an airline maid,” referring to her one-time job as a stewardess for Air France.
That day Denis and his wife left Château Brillant forever.
One might think that was the end of the debacle, but I’m afraid that was not the way things were played out in my family. Denis went on to sue his mother. My parents told me that he dragged her through the courts, claiming that she should give him a greater portion of her assets than her other sons. They also said that he lost his lawsuit, and was not looked upon favorably by the court for having sued his own mother.
What a shame that a family blessed with so many riches had to waste so much time and energy living a life filled with greed. And as far as the other branches of my family are concerned, this is only the tip of the iceberg. A few years ago, I read in a French magazine that the Cointreau Liqueur family history makes the television shows Dallas and Dynasty seem tame.
After my first trip to Europe at the age of six, I gradually grew to realize that my father was by far the best of all his relatives. He was a kind and generous man who was fortunate and smart enough to have made his life in the United States, far away from the backstabbing and intrigue that plagued a whole generation of the Cointreau dynasty.
However, Maman Genevieve and family battles would turn out to be the very least of my problems. There was a much darker experience waiting for me back in New York in the fall of 1949, a year I will always think of in terms of “before” and “after.”
MY ANNUS HORRIBILIS: AUTUMN 1949 – SUMMER 1950
Autumn: Mr. Fuller
For as long as I could remember, two phrases besides “Mother only loves you when you’re perfect” were drummed into my head: Tata never tired of saying, “Bluebloods never give in,” and Mother—who was not comfortable with my childhood tears—was always reminding me, “Men don’t cry.” I think Tata said it tongue in cheek, but Mother was serious.
Mother’s admonishment was once again wasted on me when I dissolved in tears on my first day in the fourth grade at the Browning School for Boys in New York City. I was only eight, much younger and smaller than the other students in my class, which left me feeling vulnerable—as though I were