She may not have been carried away by the wintry weather in southern France, where her film--fittingly titled Sombres Vacances (Gloomy Vacation) --is being shot, but Actress Catherine Deneuve had cause for celebration last week anyway. Abandoning the cameras and donning coats, Deneuve, Actors Claude Brasseur and Jean-Louis Trintignant and the film's company broke out caviar and champagne in honor of Deneuve's 31st birthday. Then the star settled down to read a batch of congratulatory telegrams. Among them was a sign of a hard-working actress's lot: telegraphed greetings from her children, Christian, 11, son of Director Roger Vadim, and Chiara, 2, daughter of Actor Marcello Mastroianni.

Home-Run King Henry Aaron will soon be hanging up his cleats for the year, but the 40-year-old slugger has at least one more road trip in mind first. On Thursday Hammerin' Hank flies to Japan for a home-run hitting contest against Sadaharu Oh, 34, star first baseman for Tokyo's Yomiuri Giants. Oh has 634 lifetime home runs against Aaron's 733 and expects to pass Aaron's total one day. At their Saturday contest, each batter will select a pitcher and then use half an hour trying to rap baseballs out of Tokyo's Korakuen Stadium. For his appearance, Aaron will make $50,000, win or lose. As for Oh, he warms up for each game by gulping down a secret mixture of Korean ginseng and honey, and expects to emerge victorious. "I'm younger than he," says Oh politely, "and I'm afraid Mr. Aaron would have to suffer from jet-age time lag." Oh, Hank.

While a proud Lord Snowdon recorded the event on film, his daughter Lady Sarah, 10, took to leotards for her first lessons with Dame Ninette de Valois, former director of the Royal Ballet and founder of the Royal Ballet School. Left unrecorded was the debut of Lady Sarah's mother, Princess Margaret, 44. Not wanting her daughter to get a leg up, Princess Margaret has begun taking ballet lessons herself --with the Royal Ballet's guest artist Rudolf Nureyev. "They dance together in a large studio furnished only with a mirror, a barre and a piano," reports a friend of Nureyev. "He puts her through the whole routine of pirouettes and arabesques. He also gives her ballet lifts high on his shoulder. Obviously, it is a marvelous way for the princess to keep fit." Not to mention Nureyev.

" 'Learn a trade' is the most important piece of advice I'd give to a young girl today," says Franc,oise Giroud, 58. "I can support the idea that you let a man beat you four times a day because you love him, but not because you can't afford to leave him." Giroud has obviously been taking her own advice. As a journalist, she was co-founder and longtime editor of the French newsweekly L'Express. As a spokesperson for women's rights, she was named France's first State Secretary for the Condition of Women earlier this year. "The American woman has a profound sense of having been conned," she says. "American women were partners in building America, in pioneering, and the next thing they knew, suddenly they were exiled to being housewives ..." Last week the protean, vibrantly handsome author was in the U.S. for a hectic round of interviews and dinners to promote her recently translated autobiography, I Give You My Word. After more than a score of meetings, however, including two with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and one with Labor Secretary Peter Brennan, Giroud abruptly returned to Paris to take care of business--a suddenly called Cabinet meeting to finish the draft of a new abortion law. "She was impressed by me and the work I was doing. She then employed me and the romance started," explained Michael Wilson, 29. In fact, Wilson's performance as a butler and chauffeur so impressed Rachel Fitler, 77, that the Pennsylvania heiress and aunt of Happy Rockefeller has accepted her former employee's proposal of marriage. The Welsh coal miner's son denies any attachment to his fiancee's fortune, unofficially estimated at $2.5 million. "I must say it crossed my mind once in a while," he says, "but that isn't why I am marrying her." He does confess to borrowing $120 from Miss Fitler for her engagement ring. Despite the protests of her financial advisers, Wilson plans to make his fiancee a December bride, then leave for a three-month honeymoon cruise. "I think the age difference is unimportant," said Miss Fitler last week, adding, "it'll be pleasant and interesting to have a man around the house."

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