A Closer Look at the Rothschilds Surrealist Ball

Ode to eccentric art, or display of deviant decadence?

Where: Chateau de Ferrières

When: 12th December 1972

Who: Baroness Marie-Hélène de Rothschild and “her husband Guy” among the 150 guests: Salvador Dalí, Audrey Hepburn, and members of various royal families from around Europe.

Before we dive into a deeply invested examination of Eyes Wide Shut (our end-of-year highlight that ties everything together with brazen cinematic flair) we have a couple of key points to discuss here beforehand. As some of you know, the movie is digested much differently today than when it was first released back in ‘99. So we’ll be working our way backward through a series of connected footnotes. The key is understanding Kubrick's immaculate dedication to details in his films. Knowing that nothing, down to the newspaper clutched by a man in line at the corner deli, to flyers posted in a passing shop window, is included by mistake.

That and the fact that Kubrick spent a good chunk of his life studying secret elite societies and their rituals. This is why EWS being his last film raises questions of its own. In interviews during the film's promotion, Nicole Kidman described Kubrick's intrigue as a lifelong obsession leading up to this film obviously inspired by the Rothschilds. Hence, the location selected for the eerie masked ball orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut, filmed at the Château de Ferrières. The château was built between 1855 and 1859 for Baron James de Rothschild. Located in central France, it boasted 80 guest suites, 11.5 square miles of forest, and an 80,000-volume library.

The Rothschild legacy has long driven conspiracy theories, people speculating what dark secrets might be masked by great wealth. At the core of these conspiracies, the accusations are that their financial leverage has been used to steer the course of a global economy. Which of course strings together a connection to Jeffery Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, because somehow everything here does.

“Audrey Hepburn wore a birdcage. Perfumer Hélène Rochas wore a gramophone. Another guest had her face covered by an apple, in allusion to Magritte's painting The Son of Man — while someone else came dressed like a sliced up version of the Mona Lisa.”

---

---

Alan Dershowitz wrote in The Spector that his introduction to Ghislaine, then a “30-something-year-old girlfriend to Jeffery Epstein," came thanks to Sir Evelyn and Lady Lynne de Rothschild. Maria Farmer told Whitney Webb on her podcast recently that Ghislaine once confided that the Rothschilds were her family's "greatest protectors." Adding that she received death threats from the Rothschilds because of her involvement with the allegations against Jeffery and Ghislaine. For the record, Farmer has been prone to faulty accusations, but it's not hard to imagine that these two powerful families would combine forces to fuel a larger (collective) goal.

---

GM pictured with Nat Rothschild (top left)

---

---

“In December 1972, the infamous "Rothschild party" turned reality on its head. Baroness Marie-Hélène de Rothschild organized a Surrealist-themed Ball for an intriguing mix of politicians, bankers, artists, and celebrities at the Château de Ferrières, one of the family's chateaus located about 15 miles outside of Paris.

Were it not for the wealthy Rothschild family's fascinating history, this opulent masked party featuring servants dressed as cats and a dessert shaped like a nude woman may have remained just another ephemeral social gathering.

But because the Rothschilds come from a family that pioneered international finance, funded historical war efforts, and dominates several international industries to this day, conspiracy theories continue to abound about the true nature of the event.” - Via All That’s Interesting

Party Details

• The Invitations encouraged "black tie, long dresses & surrealist heads,” not only cryptic but written backward so they had to be read in a mirror. According to ancient beliefs about devil-worshipping, "inversion" or the transposition of letters or sacred Christian symbols indicates the presence of “demonic rituals.” The "inverted" invitation is often pointed to as definitive evidence of the evil nature of the ball, but there's no solid evidence to suggest that any sort of ritual or devil-worshipping antics actually took place. A perfect time to remind you of “Redrum”

• Because guests arrived just as the sun was starting to fade, the floodlights made the chateau appear as if it was on fire.

• Servants inside were dressed as cats, stationed along the main staircase, in various stages of slumber.

• Guests were ushered through a maze of cobwebs, with the helpful "cats" leading lost guests to their tables.

• The dinner plates were fur-covered, and the tables were littered with plastic baby dolls and taxidermied tortoise shells. Some believe the disturbing doll parts that decorated the tables were a nod to human sacrifice

• Menu items included "sir-loin," soup described as "extra-lucid," and goat's cheese “roasted in post-coital sadness."

• Dessert was a nude woman made entirely of sugar, laid upon a bed of roses.

• Surrealist painter Salvador Dalí designed many of the grandiose costumes at the party but didn't wear one himself.

• Marie-Hélène, for her part, wore a giant stag's head adorned with real diamonds.

• Because we know Kubrick’s attention to detail, we know that it's no coincidence the actress Marisa Berenson (who attended the dinner) would later be cast in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. Nor is it happenstance that the masked ball at the Rothschild's Mentmore Towers property in Buckinghamshire was used for his final film Eyes Wide Shut, to eerily echo the ball of 1972.

• Many insist that the ball was full of Freemason & Illuminati imagery. The chateau's black-and-white checkered floors are symbolic of the Freemasons.

• There's no shortage of conspiracy theorists who suggest that this party was the Rothschilds' way of sending a "secret message" indicating that they intended to "rule the world." And while it's more likely that the motive of a Surrealist Ball was to be as eccentric and outlandish as possible, conspiracy theorists view the theme itself as a clever alibi to showcase a penchant for deviant decadence.

  ---

“Plates were covered in fur, tables decorated with taxidermied tortoises and food served on a mannequin corpse on a bed of roses.”

“If your family has the largest private fortune in history, the least you can do is hold a party at the most lavish chateau in France with costumes designed by Salvador Dalí, Audrey Hepburn in a birdcage hat, and an interactive maze filled with butlers pretending to be cats.

The family who did just that is the Rothschilds. In 1957, after a brief first marriage to a horse-breeding count, Baroness Marie-Hélène Naila Stephanie Josina van Zuylen van Nyevelt van de Haar wed her third cousin Guy de Rothschild, head of the de Rothschild Frères bank. Their romance broke various barriers. As it was the first time a leading Rothschild had married a non-Jewish spouse, Guy was forced to resign his presidency of the Jewish community in France and Catholic Marie-Hélène had to receive special dispensation from the pope. The pair’s social life showed similar liberalism.

Their home, and venue for their now-mythical Surrealist Ball, was Chateau de Ferrières, said to be the biggest and most luxurious nineteenth-century chateau in France. On seeing his cousin’s impressive Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, Guy’s ancestor Baron James de Rothschild told its architect Joseph Paxton: “Build me a Mentmore, but twice the size”. Ferrières boasts eighty guest bedrooms, thirty square kilometers of forest, a 120-foot central hall, atlas columns and caryatids sculpted by Charles Cordier, a library of over eight thousand volumes, and a neo-Renaissance Italian garden.

Occupied during the Franco-Prussian War and again by the Germans in World War Two, Chateau de Ferrières remained empty until 1959 when Marie-Hélène decided to refurbish it. It soon became a hedonist epicenter for European high society, a rigorous mix of nobility, Hollywood stars, artists, musicians, and fashion designers, Yves Saint Laurent cheek-by-jowl with Brigitte Bardot and Grace Kelly. Such was the parties’ allure that one prominent social figure threatened to commit suicide if she wasn’t invited to the next one.

And so to 12th December 1972, the year of Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and the night of Marie-Hélène’s own surrealist masterpiece. Invitations were sent out with the cryptic dress code “black tie, long dresses & surrealist heads”, the instructions were typed backward so they had to be read in a mirror. As guests arrived, the front of the chateau was floodlit as if it were on fire. Along the main staircase, servants and footmen dressed as cats pawed at each other and pretended to be asleep. On entry, guests were led into a maze, an immersive theatrical experience in a forest of cobweb ribbons full of dark surprises. If you got lost, you could call a cat to “help” you.”

Whatever the case - art or satanic gathering, the party inspired the movie, and the movie - 20 years later - is looking less like an erotic daydream and more like some kind of cunning cinematic whistleblow.