Security men almost outnumbered the guests at the Guy de Rothschild chateau outside Paris--and with good reason. A dazzle of diamonds winked and twinkled in all directions, from hair, hands, necks and bosoms. The Duchess of Windsor's were canary. Signora Gianni Agnelli's stones coruscated white, pink and green. But Elizabeth Taylor outshone everyone at the costume ball with the 69.4-carat, million-dollar "Burton Diamond" at her throat, and her black hair caught up in a net studded with 1,000 small diamonds and edged with 25 larger ones. Perhaps to relieve the monotony, her feather spray was held in place by a 20-carat emerald. Estimated total worth of Liz's jewelry: $3,000,000.

Even Aristotle Onassis has trouble with the kids, what with Christina, 20, getting married last summer to 47-year-old Los Angeles Real Estate Broker Joe Bolker, and Alexander, 23, going steady with 39-year-old Divorcee Fiona Thyssen. Onassis, though, has a kind of authority not given to all parents: a multimillion-dollar trust fund that Alexander and Christina will begin to enjoy on Dec. 11--provided Daddy Ari approves. Alexander has begun dismissing talk about Fiona as "nonsense," and Christina has gone off to London, leaving Husband Bolker at home to cancel the invitations he had sent out for her 21st birthday party.

"You left us marching on the road. And said how heavy was the load . . . Won't you listen to the lambs, Bobby? They're crying for you." This appeal, in a new song by left-hearted Folk Singer Joan Baez, seems to have been answered by her friend Bob Dylan. The Minnesota-born troubadour, who in recent years abandoned his ballads of protest (Masters of War, The Times They Are A-Changin') to celebrate such bland delights as country pie and copper kettles, is out with a new single in the old angry mode, mourning the death of Soledad Brother George Jackson, killed three months ago in an escape attempt at San Quentin prison. Excerpt: "The prison guards they cursed him,/ As they watched him from above./ But they were frightened by his power,/ They were scared of his love./ Lord, Lord, so they cut George Jackson down./ Lord, Lord, they laid/ Him in the ground."

He is 45 years old, and last week in Lima, Peru, a bad bull knocked him down and broke two of his fingers. Why does he do it? Luis Miguel Do-mingum--several times a millionaire and one of the alltime greats of the corrida --quoted his friend Pablo Picasso to explain why he came out of retirement this year. "I asked Picasso what he thought of my wish to go back to the bulls, and he gave me a Spaniard's answer: 'I have been painting most of my life, and I will die painting. You have been fighting bulls most of your life. So you go back to the arena, and if you die impaled on the horns of a bull, what better death could you wish for yourself?' "

What about the buzz that Queen Elizabeth is most unhappy because Princess Anne, 21, is really serious about handsome London Realtor Richard Meade, 32, gold-medal-winning show jumper on Britain's Equestrian Team? "Silly gossip," pooh-poohed the palace spokesman. "He is numbered among her friends." No doubt about that. After British Show-Jumping Star Harvey Smith publicly remarked that European Horse Trial Champion Anne was "nowhere near Olympic standard," he got a fast telegram from Meade--not exactly challenging him to a duel, but offering to bet him $600 that he would beat Smith at the Badminton three-day horse trials in April, and another $600 that Smith would not win the event.

As a "Christmas present to New York," the Indianapolis Museum of Art has loaned to Central Park a steel sculpture of Robert Indiana's famed arrangement of the world's favorite four-letter word. "It weighs three tons," said Indiana, "so I hope nobody steals it. But I'm not too sure; it's already the century's most plagiarized work of art."

"I discovered last year that sending Christmas cards was one thing I didn't have to do," says Cosmopolitan Editor Helen Gurley Brown. Others who have made the same discovery include Actress Jane Fonda (no peace on earth these days), Heavyweight Muhammad Ali (he is a Black Muslim), Actress Gloria Swanson (Christmas is too complicated as it is), Author Truman Capote ("I loathe all that rushing around and buying just because it's Christmas") and Singer James Taylor. "James probably doesn't even know when Christmas is," explains his secretary. "And if he did send out cards, they wouldn't be printable."

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