Alice de Janzé Socialites Information

Alice de Janzé, née Silverthorne (28 September 1899 – 30 September 1941), also known as Alice de Trafford and holder of the noble title Comtesse (Countess) de Janzé for a few years, was an American heiress who spent years in Kenya as a member of the Happy Valley set of colonials. She was connected with numerous scandals, including the attempted murder of her lover in 1927, and the 1941 murder of The 22nd Earl of Erroll in Kenya. Her tempestuous life was marked by promiscuity, drug abuse and several suicide attempts.

Growing up in Chicago and New York, Silverthorne was one of the most prominent American socialites of her time; a relative of the powerful Armour family, she was a multi-millionaire heiress. She entered French aristocracy in 1921, when she married Count de Janzé. In the mid-1920s, she was introduced to the infamous Happy Valley set, a community of white expatriates in East Africa, notorious for their hedonistic lifestyle. In 1927, she made international news when she shot her lover Raymond de Trafford in a Paris railway station and then turned the gun on herself; they both survived. De Janze stood trial but was only fined a small amount, and was later pardoned by the French state. She further scandalized the public by marrying, and then later divorcing, the man she shot.

In 1941, she was one of several major suspects in the well-publicized murder in Kenya of her friend and former lover Lord Erroll. After a long history of numerous suicide attempts, she died of a self-inflicted gunshot in September 1941. Her personality has been referenced both in fiction and non-fiction, most notably in the book White Mischief and its film adaptation, where she was portrayed by Sarah Miles.

Alice was born in Buffalo, Erie County, New York, the only child of textile industrialist William Edward Silverthorne and wife, Julia Belle Chapin (14 August 1871 – 2 June 1907) a relative to the Armour family, of meatpacking success through the Armour and Company brand, at the time the largest food products company in the world. Silverthorne was a first cousin, once removed, to J. Ogden Armour and great-niece to Philip Danforth Armour and Herman Ossian Armour, the granddaughter of their sister Marietta, who left much of her estate to her mother, Julia, in 1897. William and Julia were married in Chicago on 8 June 1892, the city where Alice spent most of her childhood and adolescence, living with her parents in the affluent Gold Coast district. Alice herself became a favorite of her cousin, J. Ogden Armour. Her family's great wealth prompted her childhood friends to take a cue from her surname and give her the nickname "Silver Spoon".

Julia Silverthorne died of complications from tuberculosis when Alice was only eight, although biographer Paul Spicer argues that her death was a result from being locked out of the house by her husband during a freezing night six months earlier. Alice, who inherited a large estate from her mother, was herself an asymptomatic consumptive from birth. Following her mother's death, Alice was raised by a German governess in large houses in New York; her alcoholic father was frequently absent due to his professional obligations. Contrary to her wishes, William Silverthorne quickly remarried in 1908, and had five children with his second wife, Louise Mattocks. Many of them did not survive; Alice's half-siblings included William Jr. (1912–1976), Victoria Louise (died in infant|infancy in 1914), Patricia (1915–?), Lawrence (1918–1923) and an unnamed girl who died in infancy in 1910. William later divorced Mattocks and married twice more.

With her father's encouragement, the precocious Alice was introduced to wild social life in her early adolescence. She was one of the more prominent socialites of Chicago, frequenting the fashionable nightclubs of the time. Her father also took her on several European tours and encouraged her image as a prominent debutante. These years of wild youth left Alice with a chronic melancholia; it is possible that she suffered from cyclothymia, a strain of bipolar disorder.

Her father soon lost custody of her; an uncle from her mother's side assumed the role of her legal guardian and then proceeded to place her at a boarding school in Washington D.C. Journalist Michael Kilian believes this was because William Silverthorne had an incestuous relationship with his adolescent daughter, in which she lost her virginity to her father, until one of her uncles intervened and took the case to the court. Paul Spicer disagrees that her relationship with her father was improper. Regardless of the court decision, after fourteen-year-old Alice came to live with the Armours in New York she then openly travelled with her father to the French Riviera, where Kilian claims Silverthorne openly sported her as his mistress and allowed her to keep a black panther as a pet. In later years, she was famous for parading the animal up and down the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.

In 1919, Alice moved back to Chicago to live with her aunts, Mrs. Francis E. May (née Alice Chapin) and Mrs. Josephine Chapin. Two years later, Alice moved to Paris, where she briefly worked as director of the model department in Jean Patou's atelier, until she met Frédéric Jacques, Comte de Janzé (ca 1896 – 24 December 1933), a well-known French racing driver and heir to an old aristocratic family in Brittany. A participant in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and other races, Frédéric also frequented literary circles and was close friends with Marcel Proust, Maurice Barrès and Anna de Noailles.

Unlike many other American heiresses of the period, Alice had not allowed her family to arrange an advantageous match for her, choosing to take the initiative and pursue a romance with Comte de Janzé on her own. After a romance of only three weeks, the couple married on 21 September 1921 in Chicago, with her new husband reportedly finding her "Silverthorne" surname so charming that he regretted their marriage would take it away from her. Following the ceremony, Alice's aunt, Mrs. J. Ogden Armour, turned over the Armour estate on Long Island to the couple, where they spent two weeks before deciding to permanently settle in Paris, in the Champs-Élysées quarter. Their marriage produced two daughters, Nolwén Louise Alice de Janzé (20 June 1922 – 7 March 1989) and Paola Marie Jeanne de Janzé (1 June 1924 – 24 December 2006). Alice was a neglectful mother as Frederic was a neglectful father; the children were primarily brought up in their family chateau Parfondeval in Normandy by governesses and Frédéric's sister.

In 1925, de Janzé and Alice first met and became good friends with Josslyn, 22nd Earl of Erroll, and his wife, Idina, Countess of Erroll, in Montparnasse. Some time later, the young Lord and Lady Erroll decided to invite the de Janzés to spend some time in their home in the so-called 'Happy Valley' in the British Colony of Kenya, a community of British colonials living in the Wanjohi Valley, near the Aberdare Mountains. This enclave had become notorious among socialites in Great Britain for being a paradise for all those seeking a hedonistic lifestyle, including drugs, alcohol and sexual promiscuity. Noticing that Alice had become restless, Frédéric decided to distract her and agreed to the trip.

In the Happy Valley, the de Janzés were neighbours to the Errolls. Frédéric Comte de Janzé documented his time in Happy Valley and all the eccentric personalities he met there in his book, Vertical Land, which was published in 1928. The Comte provided several non-eponymous references to members of the Happy Valley set, including a psychological portrait of his wife that alludes to her suicidal tendencies:

Even among the scandalous residents of Happy Valley, Alice, who was soon known as "the wicked Madonna", caused a sensation with her beauty, sarcastic sense of humour, and wild and unpredictable mood swings. She was known for speaking passionately about animal rights as well as playing the ukulele, and soon she began an affair with Lord Erroll, openly sharing him with Idina.

Alice and Frédéric later returned to Happy Valley in 1926. While Frédéric distracted himself with lion hunting, Alice began another love affair, this time with British nobleman Raymond Vincent de Trafford (28 January 1900 – 14 May 1971), son of Sir Humphrey de Trafford, 3rd Baronet. Alice's infatuation with de Trafford was so great that at some point the couple attempted to elope, although they promptly returned. Frédéric was aware of his wife's open infidelity, but did not become preoccupied by it, although years later he would refer to the love triangle with de Trafford as "the infernal triangle".

That autumn, in an attempt to save his marriage, Frédéric returned to Paris with Alice; he was unsuccessful. Alice visited Frédéric's mother: revealing that she was in love with de Trafford, she asked her help in obtaining a divorce. Her mother-in-law advised her to think of her two daughters and do nothing she might later regret. Alice soon returned to Kenya and her lover. Hoping to keep Alice's extramarital affair from becoming a scandal, her mother-in-law loaned Alice a furnished flat in a quiet street in Paris to use as a "love nest" with de Trafford. Under pressure by his family, Frédéric quickly sued for divorce.

On the morning of 25 March 1927, Alice awoke in her Paris home feeling extremely agitated, according to the later testimony of her maid. That afternoon, when Alice and Raymond de Trafford met, he informed Alice that he would not be able to marry her as his strict Catholic family had threatened to disinherit him if he followed through with the plan. The couple later visited a sporting equipment shop together, where Alice bought a gold-mounted, pearl-handled revolver.

At the Gare du Nord a few hours later, as de Trafford was bidding farewell to her in his train compartment before he left for London by an express boat train, she pulled the revolver from her purse and shot him in the stomach, puncturing his lung. She then shot herself in the stomach. The train conductor reported that when he opened the compartment door, Alice gasped "I did it" and then collapsed.

De Trafford spent several days in a hospital in critical condition. Alice is reported to have screamed "But he must live! I want him to live!" when she heard the news that de Trafford was too seriously wounded to survive. Her own wound was initially overlooked by doctors during the confusion. Despite initial reports that spoke of her also being gravely injured, her wounds were quite superficial. One journalist reported that "she had shot herself very gently". Both Alice and de Trafford were transferred to the Laboisiere hospital. Relatives of Alice rushed to the hospital and attempted to have her transferred to a private clinic, but were stopped by the gendarmes because the countess was technically under arrest.

The incident made headlines all over the world. Some confusion was caused when five British newspapers, Western Mail, The Manchester Guardian, The Liverpool Daily Courier, The Liverpool Evening Express and Sheffield Daily Telegraph, illustrated their reports of the shooting incident with pictures not of Alice, but of her sister-in-law Vicomtesse Phillis Meeta de Janzé. The viscountess promptly sued them for libel and received a settlement.

In an attempt to minimize the situation, a statement was released to the press by Alice's family, assuring the public that there was nothing in the double shooting that "casts discredit upon the names of Armour and Silverthorne, which have been honored in America many generations, nor anything which could induce a French jury to render a verdict of conviction". Her aunt Mrs. George Silverthorne told a reporter: "It cannot be Alice. She and her husband were so happy together, and such a thing would be impossible. There must be some mistake".

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