The Cartiers

2

Louis (1898 1919)

A Spring Wedding

April 30, 1898. Springtime in Paris. Crowds were gathered outside the Church of the Madeleine, an imposing neoclassical building just to the northeast of the Élysée Palace, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sixteen-year-old bride as she arrived with her father. Inside, the Parisian fashion crowd were already at their pews. Eyeing one another s outfits and jostling for the best view of the aisle, they were eager to see what the granddaughter of the world s first celebrity designer would wear on the most important day of her life.

Up by the altar, the good-looking twenty-three-year-old groom was feeling uncomfortable. Under normal circumstances, Louis Cartier would have relished being the center of attention, especially surrounded by the crème de la crème of French society, but this was far from a normal day. Imploringly, he looked toward his father, who signaled encouragingly at the hundreds who had turned out to witness the union of two great families. Or rather, one great family, the Worths, and another family that still aspired to greatness. While the House of Worth was famous for revolutionizing Parisian fashion, the House of Cartier was still relatively unknown.

Just a few days earlier, Louis had gone to his father, Alfred, in desperation. He couldn t marry this girl, he had pleaded. She wasn t right. He understood that an alliance with her family would be good for their business, but what about his life? She would make him miserable. She wasn t like other girls: she was somber one minute, hysterical the next. His fourteen-year-old brother, Jacques, had spotted it too: I spent several afternoons alone with her and I was struck by her strangeness, her melancholy, and her sense of not being completely there.

Later Jacques would recall how, soon after meeting Andrée-Caroline, she had insisted he read several morbid books, something that had surprised him given her young age. While he was reading, she

A graduate in English literature from Oxford University, Francesca Cartier Brickell is a direct descendant of the Cartier family. Her great-great-great grandfather founded Cartier in 1847. Her late grandfather, Jean-Jacques Cartier, was the last of the family to manage and own a branch of the world-famous jewelry firm. Leaving behind a career in finance to focus on independently researching her family history, Francesca has spent over a decade travelling the world in search of the real story behind the Cartiers. She is an accredited GIA jewelry professional and lectures internationally and online on Cartier's illustrious history. She lives with her husband and children in London and the South of France.

[Brickell s grandfather s] accounts are the beating heart of The Cartiers, elevating this from a company story to a human story one even the unadorned will read with pleasure. The New York Times Book Review

[A] hard-to-put-down account of the generations of the Cartiers and the famed jewels of the global dynasty. Forbes

Artfully documented . . . The story of the Cartier family is the story of wealth creation in the 19th and 20th centuries as it moved in waves from country to country. Bloomberg

Selected among  The Best Gifts to Give Your Sister for the Holidays Harper s Bazaar

A thoroughly researched and enjoyable family business history that should appeal to history buffs and lovers of high-end fashion and jewelry alike. Library Journal

In glittering . . . prose, Francesca Cartier Brickell excavates lost family archives and shares with us how three brothers turned a small Parisian ship into a worldwide icon of love and luxury. Part family story, part jewelry-lover s dream, part history this gem . . . of a book will have a little something for everyone. LitHub

[A] fascinating history written by a scion of Louis-Francçois Cartier . . . With diplomacy, artistry, originality, and a clear love of their work, the saga of the three Cartier brothers and their descendants is as lush as their jewels. Read It Forward

This is an incredible monograph that chronicles the rise and family dynamics of one of the most prestigious and internationally known jewelry brands linked to the family that built it brick by brick. Ms. Brickell . . . proffers a very detailed and somewhat intimate story of the Cartiers. . . . Whether she is writing about the ascension of the brand or the way in which it created its signatures, the author conveys a sense of loyalty. New York Journal of Books

An enchanting jewel of a book.