ALWAYS HER HEART WILL BE IN PARIS

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31755, 12 August 1968, Page 2

ALWAYS HER HEART WILL BE IN PARIS

After 28 years of marriage to an Englishman, Mrs Madeleine Chadwick, wife of the director of the Commonwealth Foundation (Mr J. Chadwick) is still very, very French, and still a firm admirer of General de Gaulle.

“My husband always says the French do not export well—they keep their qualities and their faults,” she said in Christchurch yesterday.

French is still the language of communication in her own home, even though they are based in London. She always speaks to her two sons, Dominique, aged 28, and Roland, 26, in French. Her eldest son has married a Chinese girl whom he met in Singapore and the couple converse in English, but Mrs

Chadwick has taught her little grandson, Patrick, who was five on Saturday, to speak French.

Her own sons, who were brought up by their grandmother until they were six or seven, had to wait until their parents were posted to Ottawa before they learned English—in a French-Canadian school. French Citizen

Mrs Chadwick has retained her French citizenship. “In my country a woman who marries a foreigner always keeps her nationality and so do her children—unless at 21 they decide they do not wish to be French. “My younger son, who Is studying law, did his national service in France, and Dominique, my elder son, is a travel agent in London. Both the boys have “duo nationality.” Given a choice of living anywhere in the world, Mrs Chadwick would prefer to live in Paris. When asked if she liked the French fashion designers best she said: “Oh yes of course, but don’t ask me to tell my designer or my age.” “But I like to be selective . . . something English, something Italian, something French," said Mrs Chadwick who is slim and elegant. Much Livelier The atmosphere of Paris is much livelier than London and whenever Mrs Chadwick returns to Paris she finds it takes a while to adjust to the pace of her friends. “I find I do not speak so quickly. I notice I am slower and tire easily. They say to the ■ . . ’But Madeleine, you are so English’.” Eventually Mrs Chadwick finds she adjusts to the life in Paris and she regards herself as lucky to have spent two years there from 1954 to 1956 when her husband was with N.A.T.O. Love of Travel

Although she is fond of browsing through art galleries, Mrs Chadwick frankly admits she has no hobbies. She likes travelling because it takes her away from the routine of household duties—“which I absolutely abhor." Marriage to an Englishman has not created any difficulies except the occasional arguments about politics.

When the war broke out, Mrs Chadwick joined the French Overseas Territories Mission in London, which was headed by General de Gaulle. “We were making a big effort in our territories and it was our duty to let the British know what we were doing. I was head of the Department of Colonial Documents. And after the Government was returned in France I was made a permanent French civil servant, but unfortunately, I had to give that up when we were posted to Canada.”