Constance Crowninshield Coolidge

Constance Crowninshield Coolidge (1892-1973), was a Boston Brahmin, socialite and an American expatriate. The daughter of David Hill Coolidge and Harriet Sears. She was also the niece of Frank Crowninshield, editor of Vanity Fair.

Constance Coolidge (1892-1973) by John Singer Sargent. Signed and dated 1915

Constance had the pedigree of the most elite Boston Brahmim; she was a descendant of the Adams, Amory, Coolidge, Copley, Crowninshield, and Peabody families. She was a distant relative of Calvin Coolidge.

A trust child and in adulthood a self proclaimed socialist. Constance rejected the Brahmin background early in life, replacing it with a Parisian life from 1923 onwards. Her friendships included the literati: Harry Crosby, Hart Crane, Somerset Maugham and H. G. Wells.

Marriage to Ray Atherton, US Diplomat

She married Ray Atherton at the age of eighteen. They resided initially in Chicago, Illinois and moved to London returning in 1917, when he entered the U.S foreign service.

During her first marriage, she accompanied her husband to China on a diplomatic posting, where she, a determined gambler, behaved wildly enough to earn herself the nickname ‘The Queen of Peking’. Living there during American Prohibition in the early 1920’a proved tantalizing for her. She began an affair Eric Brenan, a British Diplomat, as well as with an American Expat, Felix Doubleday while in still in China as the wife of a diplomat. Felix Doubleday was the adoptive son of Frank Nelson Doubleday. Love letters from both Eric and Felix have been preserved. It was also during this time that she became friends with Wallis Simpson.

Constance dresses were flamboyant and she spared little thought of what others might say about her. She loved anything risky; was addicted to horse racing, gambling and extramarital liaisons, which placed a great deal of a strain on their marriage.

She had multiple admirers and received regular relationship advice from her financial guardian, Uncle Charles Francis Adams III (1866-1954), written on his ‘Secretary of the US Navy’ stationery.

When her first marriage was in tatters, Constance moved to Paris, whilst her future ex-husband, Ray Atherton went on to head up the U.S. Embassy in Athens.

Life in Paris

Constance became intimately involved for a time with the hedonistic poet and publisher Harry Crosby, whose wife Caresse Crosby was the first recipient of a patent for the modern bra.

Constance, the French Countess (1924-1929)

Following her divorce from Ray Atherton, she became engaged to the reportedly handsome former polo player, Count Pierre de Jumilhac, also known as Antoine Clément Marie Pierre Chapelle de Jumilhac. They married in October and she became the Comtesse de Jumilhac. Whilst married to the Count, she became one of the most prominent racehorse owners in France, however the marriage did not last, and by 1929 they were divorced.

D. H. Lawrence, the English writer, wrote to Harry Crosby and mentioned Constance:

“Good that Constance – la Comtesse – has her divorce – but tell her to spend a year in contemplation before she starts marrying again. Marriage is a treacherous stimulant.

Constance remained in Paris after her divorcee from the count. During during the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936, she invited Wallis Simpson to stay with her in Paris, and wasa guest at their wedding.

Constance remained at the center of social events and was friends with Ernest Hemingway and Wallis Simpson.

She was married twice more, and in 1934 met the writer H.G. Wells, twenty-five years her senior, with whom she conducted a passionate affair in the last decade of his life. By the time she was forty years of age, she had been married four times.

Passionate about horse racing, she owned a very large stable of horses and she would go to the racetrack every day. She spent most of her life in Paris.

Later years

In the 1950s she married Andre William Magnus, a public relations manager in the French Film Industry.

Photographic Collection of her life

The Southern Illinois University, Carbondale holds a series of photographs of her life as part of the Caresse Crosby Collection.

Death

Constance died at the American Hospital in Paris on April 30, 1973 and her husband, Andre Magnus scattered her ashes in a vault situated on the top of a hill in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Further reading

• The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Volume VII, November 1928 – February 1930, ed. Keith Sagar and James T. Boulton, Cambridge University Press, 1993, page 48. ISBN 0-521-00699-6.
• W.H. Downes, John S. Sargent, his life and work, London, 1926, page 291, as 'Mrs Ray Atherton'.
• D. McKibbin, Sargent's Boston, with an Essay and a Biographical Summary; plus a complete Check List of Sargent's portraits, Boston, 1956, page 82, as 'Mrs Ray Atherton'.