Princess Martha Bibescu (Martha Lucia; née Lahovary; 28 January 1886 – 28 November 1973), also known outside of Romania as Marthe Bibesco, was a Romanian-French writer, socialite, known for her literary work and social involvement in political circles. She spent her childhood at the noble Lahovary's estates in Balotești and Biarritz, where she received an education in literature. Throughout her life, she travelled extensively across Europe, meeting notable political figures of her time. After World War I, she rebuilt her family's estates, but later lived in exile following the establishment of communist rule in Romania after World War II.
She began her literary career in 1908 with the publication of her travel memoir Les Huit Paradis ("The Eight Paradises"), which received positive reviews from French critics. One of her notable works is the novel Isvor, pays des saules ("Isvor, Land of Willows"). Writing under the pseudonym Lucile Décaux, she authored several romance novels, and contributed articles to various magazines under her own name.
Born Marta Lucia Lahovary (also spelled Lahovari) in Bucharest as the third child of nobleman Ioan Lahovary and Princess Emma Mavrocordato, both members of Phanariote Greek families (Lahovary & Mavrokordatos). Marthe spent her childhood at the Lahovary family estates in Balotești and the fashionable French sea-resort of Biarritz.
On her first introduction into society, in 1900, she met Crown Prince Ferdinand, the heir apparent to the Romanian throne, but after a secret engagement of one year, Marthe married Prince George III Valentin Bibescu (Bibesco) at sixteen, scion of one of the country's prestigious aristocratic families Bibescu. "I stepped onto the European stage through the grand door", she wrote on her wedding day. Her father, who had been educated in France, held the post of minister of the Kingdom of Romania in Paris and, later, that of minister of foreign affairs of Romania.
Fluent in French at an early age, even before she could speak Romanian, Marthe spent the first years of her marriage under the tutelage of her mother-in-law, Princess Valentine Bibesco (née countess Riquet de Caraman-Chimay), who saw to it that the extensive education in European history and literature Marthe already had was reinforced. An old peasant woman, Baba Uța (Outza), saw to it that she was also well-versed in Romanian folk traditions and tales. Meanwhile, her husband, George, was interested in fast cars and other women, but adding to the family fortune at the same time.
Despite her wide circle of friends, and the birth of her daughter Valentine in 1903, Marthe was bored. In 1905, when George was sent by the Romanian king Carol I on a diplomatic mission to Mozzafar-al-Din, Shah of Iran, she eagerly embarked on the trip, recording her observations in a journal. Along the way, she stopped at Yalta, where she encountered the exiled Russian writer Maxim Gorki. It was in 1908, at the suggestion of Maurice Barrès, that Marthe completed and published her impressions of her Persian trip. The French critics and writers were enthusiastic and extremely complimentary. The travel memoirs, Les Huit Paradis ("The Eight Paradises"), launched her on a lifelong career as a successful writer of both nonfiction and novels. She was well received in literary circles in Paris during the Belle Époque, moving easily among the literary, aristocratic and political power elites. She was awarded the Prix de l'Académie française and met Marcel Proust, who sent her a letter praising her book: "You are not only a splendid writer, Princess, but a sculptor of words, a musician, a purveyor of scents, a poet".
Back in Bucharest, in 1908, Marthe was introduced to the German Kronprinz, Wilhelm. Wilhelm (who, despite Marthe's references to him as "the III", was never to succeed Wilhelm II) was married, but he nevertheless wrote warmly affectionate letters to Marthe for the following fifteen years. She and her husband were invited to Germany, in the autumn of the same year, as Wilhelm's personal guests, visiting Berlin, Potsdam, Weimar, and taking part in the imperial regatta at Kiel. She accompanied Wilhelm in the imperial limousine, as it passed through the Brandenburg Gate, a role typically reserved for members of the imperial family. He would also try to involve Marthe in the international relations of pre-war Europe, secretly asking her to be the quiet mediator between France and Germany on the Alsace-Lorraine issue.
Divorce was often stigmatized among the European nobility, while extramarital relationships were more socially tolerated. While Marthe and George continued in what was sometimes a mutually supportive partnership, they pursued their own interests. The French prince Charles-Louis de Beauvau-Craon fell in love with Marthe, leading to an affair that lasted for a decade. In Paris, she also encountered the Roman Catholic Abbé Mugnier, who converted her from her Eastern Orthodox faith, and she began an extensive, frank correspondence with him that was to last 36 years.
Following several personal challenges, Marthe withdrew to Algeria, then part of the French colonial Empire, to stay with an aunt of her husband, Jeanne Bibesco, thinking about divorcing George and espousing the prince de Beauvau-Craon. Still, she felt she could not do it; George would prove to be surprisingly generous and understanding, giving her the Mogoșoaia Palace (Mogosoëa in certain French renderings) in 1912.
A couple of months before World War I, Marthe visited Spain, following the footsteps of Chateaubriand, her favourite French writer. In May, she was back in her country to greet Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family, who were visiting the country after being invited by Princess Marie, wife of Prince Ferdinand.
In March 1915, Marthe met Christopher Thomson, the British military attaché, at a Palace soirée; he was arranging for Romania to join the Allies, although he did not agree with the policy, as Romania was unprepared for war. He remained devoted to her for the rest of his life. They corresponded regularly, and she dedicated four books to "C.B.T." Later he was a Labour peer, and Secretary of State for Air. She visited the site of his death in the R101 airship accident in December 1930 with their mutual friend the Abbé Mugnier.
When Romania at last entered the war on the Allied side in 1916, Marthe worked at a hospital in Bucharest until the German army burned down her home in Posada (near Comarnic) in the Transylvanian Alps. She fled the country to join her mother and daughter in Geneva after a quarantine exile, imposed by the German occupiers, in Austria-Hungary (as a guest of the princely family of Thurn und Taxis at Latchen). There she continued to write. For most of her life, she wrote every morning until lunchtime – her journals alone fill 65 volumes.
In Switzerland, she began work on Isvor, pays des saules ("Isvor, Land of Willows"). Her book explored themes of Romanian life, including folk beliefs and traditions."
Tragedy didn't spare Marthe, as her younger sister and her mother would commit suicide in 1918 and 1920 respectively.
For the Bibescos life after the war was more cosmopolitan than limited to Romania. Among her literary friends and acquaintances, Marthe counted Jean Cocteau, Paul Valéry, Rainer Maria Rilke, François Mauriac, Max Jacob, and Francis Jammes. In 1919, Marthe was invited to Prince Antoine Bibesco's wedding in London to Elizabeth Asquith. Princess Elizabeth Bibesco, who died in Romania during World War II, is buried in the Bibesco family vault on the grounds of Mogoșoaia. Marthe for many years occupied an apartment in Prince Antoine's Quai Bourbon house at which she held literary and political salons.
During this postwar period she rebuilt Posada, her mountain home, and began restoring the other family estate, Mogoșoaia, a palace built in Byzantine style. Again in London, she met Winston Churchill in 1920, starting a warm friendship that would last until his death in 1965. When her daughter Valentine married the Romanian prince Dimitrie Ghika-Comănești (24 November 1925) in a dazzling traditional ceremony, three Queens attended, (Queen-mother Sophia of Greece, Princess Consort Aspasia Manos of Greece and Queen Marie of Yugoslavia).