Never would he forget sitting beside her in the night air watching an open-air performance of The Parvenue and listening to the band at Fort House on Thursday evening.

No one seems bothered that Gunther wears a gray suit or that Gutrune - heavy with jewelry, her bright red hair piled high - resembles a Manhattan parvenue.

However, as Antonescu reached prominence and earned important political assignments, Maria too became the focus of public attention, which is said to have included negative reactions from the ranks of the upper class, who reportedly viewed her as a parvenue.

I can still see the tall, grey-haired Bigelow and his wife gravely making their rounds at the Tuileries whilst the parvenue Empress smiled from behind her fan, not understanding the true dignity of these deliberately plain American republicans.