Elisabeth de Gramont (1875–1954)

French writer in the early 20th century, long-time lover of Natalie Clifford Barney and friend of Marcel Proust.

Antonie Corisande Élisabeth de Gramont, known in the family as Élisabeth or Lily, was a member of one of the great noble families of France. Her parents were Agénor, duc de Guiche and duc de Gramont, and his first wife Princesse Isabelle de Beauvau-Craon, and the Symbolist poet comte Robert de Montesquiou was a relative. In 1896, she married Aimé François Philibert, marquis and then duc de Clermont-Tonnerre and had two daughters; the marriage ended in divorce in 1920. The duchesse became a close friend of Marcel Proust, who had modeled his baron de Charlus on de Montesquiou. After Word War I, she joined the literary circle around Natalie Clifford Barney, with whom she entered into an unofficial marriage. Under the name Élisabeth de Clermont-Tonnerre, the duchesse wrote Robert de Montesquiou et Marcel Proust (1925) and Marcel Proust (1948), and also translated into French some poetry of John Keats, which was published in Le Livre (1908). Other of her works included Histoire de Samuel Bernard et de ses enfants (1914), Les Marroniers en fleurs (1929), Clair de lune et taxi-auto (1932), Barbey d’Aurevilly (1946), her own Mémoires, La famille des Clermont-Tonnerre (1950), and Le comte d’Orsay et Lady Blessington, which was published posthumously in 1955.