The Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris appears in the diary as a practical hub for meetings and work during two days in Paris in May 1977. Its lobby provides the setting for an appointment before the tennis matches; the next day, a suite and terrace become a waiting place for an interview that is derailed by the loss of a jewel.

A meeting point before the tennis

On May 30, Fred Hughes called Bianca Jagger, who said she was running late. The group therefore set out late but still arrived early at the hotel, taking a taxi that cost four dollars. James Mason was in the lobby as they waited. The entry places the hotel within a tightly timed social itinerary: the appointment was a stop before the tennis matches, yet lateness did not prevent the group from reaching the meeting place ahead of schedule.

When Bianca arrived, she wore white slacks and a black halter top pinned with an amethyst. She said she had stayed at the Sept until five in the morning, talking with a tennis player who, she said, usually remained faithful to his wife but had wanted an affair with her. Bianca said she disliked affairs because they became too complicated; the diarist met that explanation with skepticism. The hotel visit thus records not only a rendezvous but the gossip and personal disclosures that accompanied the day’s social encounters.

The suite and the missing amethyst

On May 31, the diarist returned by taxi, this time for a planned interview with Ungaro. Bianca had a small, attractive suite with a terrace overlooking a courtyard filled with geraniums and red umbrellas. While waiting, the diarist read an English-language newspaper and ate an orange that was there. The suite’s domestic details make the hotel a temporary workplace as well as a place to meet.

Bianca searched for her Fabergé amethyst and, unable to find it, said she could not do the interview. She rushed to Castel’s, where she thought she might have lost it the previous night, and searched on her hands and knees. Her absence changed the interview’s course: Bettina, who worked for Ungaro and arrived first for lunch in a white Ungaro suit and a Bulgari snake watch, was interviewed instead. Ungaro eventually arrived in a white suit, and the group later went to his premises. The hotel suite therefore frames a small but decisive interruption, as a missing piece of jewelry displaced the scheduled interview and redirected the day’s work.