School for Wives

In the naughty old Paris of the turn of the century, Maxim's was a wicked wonderland. Girls with velvet names like Lolo, Dodo, Cloclo and Froufrou lolled there hoping to meet a king, a count, even a pretender, and were celebrated by Franz Lehar in his Merry Widow ("Now I'm off to Chez Maxim, where it's always so in-time"). Today the wine and the food are still among Paris' best, and there are girls there still, but they are rather a different sort. They are going to school.

Social Filter. L'Academie Maxim's was founded two and a half years ago by Maggie Vaudable, wife of the restaurant's present owner, to instruct a carefully selected group of girls in "the special sense of savoir-vivre that the French have prided themselves on since Louis XIV." Though the school claims to be open to all girls sufficiently familiar with the French language and culture to benefit from--not simply get along in--the all-French classes, in practice the students are recruited through a social filtering system that stretches through Europe and the U.S., Canada and Latin America.

L'Academie accepts no more than 30 girls a year. Members of the current crop include Henry Ford's daughter Anne (whose sister Charlotte graduated with the premiere class in 1961), Melinda Fuller, granddaughter of onetime Massachusetts Governor Alvan Fuller, and Genevieve du Pont of the Delaware dynasty. Tuition for the eight-month course is $2,800, covers the girls' social outings to theaters, balls, concerts and weekend house parties (escorted vacation cruises to Greece or Egypt are optional). Students do not live in dormitories, but (at an additional cost of close to $2.000) are placed with families who can offer both high social standing and--an even more difficult requirement--a private bathroom for each lodger.

The Treatment. The girls get special treatment in every move they make. They take the Sorbonne's famed French civilization course, but Madame Vaudable's girls do not have to claw for seats with the 2,000 ordinary students who also take the course; the girls are taught in a special room in a special private session given by the course's regular lecturers. When the girls go to the Louvre or Versailles, they are guided by a curator. They are invited to see the famed family art collections of Baron Edouard de Roth schild and Greek Shipowner Stavros Niarchos. France's best-known art auctioneer, Maurice Rheims, receives them in his home and talks to them of French period furniture. The Baron Alexis de Rede entertains the girls in his private apartments at the Hotel Lambert (the oldest occupied mansion in Paris), where, beneath Le Brun's painted ceiling, they sip champagne served by footmen. Duke Philippe de Luynes, president of the French Society for the Protection of Historical Dwellings, escorts them through his castle (Luynes).

In order to "prepare students for their future tasks as hostesses in their own homes," the Art of Living program requires them to take lessons in flower-arranging and cooking, and under the aristocratic instruction of the Countess Marie-Pierre de Toulouse-Lautrec, they learn such dishes as oeufs Maintenon and boeuf en croute. Distinction in wine tasting is provided by M. Vaudable at the restaurant, and these occasions are some of the rare times the girls set foot in Maxim's itself. There is a weekend ball on the estate of the champagne-making Taittinger family, where, besides dancing and riding with the country gentry, the girls are treated to a long look at and tastes from the family winery. There is a backstage visit to the House of Dior just before the spring collections, and weekly hair appointments, at a discount, at top salons like Alexandre's. The better to see gracious living at work, the girls troop off, come spring, to watch the Vicomtesse Jacqueline de Ribes prepare for a large reception in her home.

No Mart. Though Maggie Vaudable vociferously insists that she is not running a marriage mart, an occasional student does give up indoctrination for a trip to the altar. This year's loss was Catherine Schulthess, 21, of Los Angeles, who hardly lasted through the semester's opening weeks before running off with Count Constantin Sczanicki, 32, whom she met at Mme. Vaudable's introductory cocktail party. Mme. Vaudable was not pleased-particularly since the guest list at the year's first party is carefully chosen to provide escorts who will improve the girls' social competence, not involve them in unmannerly activities like love affairs. Accordingly, the men are usually a little too old (35 to 45) to be readily eligible and are carefully briefed by Mme. Vaudable. Said a student of this year's party: "They seemed to know all about us in advance, where we came from, who our parents were. It was creepy."

Creeps notwithstanding, the academy is a striking success. So much so. in fact, that Headmistress Vaudable, currently in residence at Manhattan's Hotel Carlyle, is as busy as a little French bee recruiting and screening applicants, who cannot wait to get started on their ways toward savoir-vivre.

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