Vanderbilts, Letellier & Gwynne

Smartest Parisians of the cercle du Ritz Bar were titillated and intrigued, last week, by news from Manhattan that General and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt seemed finally reconciled not only with their lanky ex-publisher son Cornelius Jr., but also with their cherub-faced and rumpus-raising nephew Erskine Gwynne.

Son Cornelius Jr. is scarcely famed in Paris--having chosen California as his place to toil and go bankrupt publishing tabloid news organs. Therefore announcements that General Cornelius Vanderbilt had made available $2,257,000 to pay the California tabloid creditors (TIME, Dec. 31), were of relatively slight interest to such typical Paris tycoons as M. Henri Letellier, publisher of the world's third largest newspaper, Le Journal. It was M. Letellier who employed, as his confidential and executive secretary until recently, the cherubic Erskine Gwynne. But tout Paris took keen interest, last week, at reports that Nephew Gwynne had actually completed a whole fortnight's visit in Manhattan without doing anything outrageous, and had been received as persona grata by General and Mrs. Vanderbilt. Today Nephew Gwynne--no bankrupt--is the solvent, industrious and incorporated publisher of The Boulevardier, a Paris smart-chart resembling Manhattan's New Yorker.

Both Son Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr. and Nephew Erskine Gwynne have now repented their original sin of writing for the lurid, gumchewerish Hearst Sunday Magazine. It was son Cornelius Jr.'s indiscretions in this blatant field which for years estranged his parents. Simultaneously Nephew Gwynne was writing from Paris a series which Hearst editors published as: "The Memoirs of Mrs. Jean Nash, by The Best Dressed and Most Extravagant Woman in the World."

Prior to perpetrating such pap for gullibles, young Erskine Gwynne, son of the late famed international polo player Edward Gwynne, reamed high explosive shells in a French munition factory (1915-17), soldiered in the A. E. F. (1917-18), and worked his way around the world on cargo boats (1919-22). Returning to Paris he found a berth with exquisite yet potent Henri Letellier. Of this Croesus among Paris publishers it is said on intimate authority that he owns 1,260 suits of clothes, and everyone knows that he has eleven motor cars, favoring Voisins. Le, tellier has been Mayor of Deauville (which he launched as a smart resort with Eugene Cornuche), owns his own marque of champagne, keeps a smart racing stable, and draws most of his immense income from real estate scattered throughout Europe and South America, from oil fields in Mexico, and from Le Journal.

As secretary to Henri Letellier and occasional pinch-hitting director of Le Journal in his absence, Erskine Gwynne naturally acquired the bibulous intimacy with Le Monde Mondain which has enabled him to found and float The Boulevardier. Today he claims 7,000 subscribers, and a larger Paris circulation than the international Paris Comet, a rival smart-chart published simultaneously in Paris, London, and Manhattan.

Prior to sailing from Manhattan for Paris, last week, Nephew Gwynne said:

"Paris has been going through a bigger police shake-up than the Grover Whalen raids in New York, ever since last Spring. Our Grover Whalen--sartorial perfection and all--is Prefect of Police Jean Chiappe [TIME, Jan. 9, 1928]. He has absolutely cleaned up the Paris 'peep shows,' which you might compare to the speakeasies of New York. You can't drop in anywhere and see odd sights in Montmartre nowadays.

"They say that Poincare told Chiappe to raid the peep shows because the Government thought they were giving Paris a bad name. Most of them were run by Algerians or Levantines or Greeks. Of course Chiappe hasn't interfered with the regular, licensed-maisons kept and patronized by the French themselves. He has been out after the tourist show places."

Asked which was now the smartest Paris night club, Editor Gwynne said: "Still the Blue Room -- unquestionably! . . . The great hit of the Paris stage this year is Paul Bourget's Vient de Paraitre. He has very cleverly dramatized the popular idea that nearly all the great French literary prizes are won through pull with. the judges."

*Any respectable Frenchman may obtain such a license by applying to the police, but loses his citizenship for the period that the license is valid.