Parisians have suffered through four scorching heatwaves this summer, but none compares to the deadly canicule of early August 2003 when temperatures reached 40 degrees. About 15,000 perished in France during that heatwave, most elderly and frail and living alone in sweltering apartments without air conditioning.

One of them was a 93-year-old English lady with a famous name. Diana Mosley, one of the glamorous Mitford sisters, had been exiled in France for more than a half-century. When the heatwave struck Paris in early August ’03, she suffered a slight stroke. The intense heat relentlessly persisted for ten days, hitting a peak of nearly 40 degrees on 11 August – the day Diana Mosley finally succumbed in her Left Bank apartment.

Her death was a sad end to a colourful and turbulent life that spanned the previous century. Born into the English aristocracy in 1910, Diana Mitford (nicknamed ‘Honks’ by her sisters) was the most dazzling beauty in London’s Bright Young Things set in the late 1920s. Famous for her porcelain skin, wide smile, and icy blue eyes, she spoke with the archaic ‘Mitford accent’, characterised by a languid drawl, clipped vowels and swooping cadences. Novelist Evelyn Waugh was madly infatuated with Diana and dedicated his 1930 novel Vile Bodies to her ‘with love’.

Once admired as the most beautiful woman in England, Diana was now the most hated woman in the country

Once admired as the most beautiful woman in England, Diana was now the most hated woman in the country

At 18, she married brewing heir Bryan Guinness,........

© The Spectator