You may feel that you have already heard too much about the Mitford sisters and their strange upbringing at Swinbrook, near Burford, but Nancy (1904-73), was definitely one of the two most interesting.

Lisa Hilton's The Horror of Love: Nancy Mitford and Gaston Palewski in Paris and London says little about her family but concentrates on her love affair with France and the Gaullist politician Col Palewski.

She was denied an education, but transformed herself into a fine author. She stumbled into a bad marriage because an aristocratic young woman usually had an empty life if she was ‘left on the shelf’. Her work with refugees gave her a horror of Fascism, and she felt obliged to denounce her sister, Diana Mosley, during the war.

Afterwards she made her home in France, which she believed was a citadel of European culture, as opposed to the brash USA.

She published serious studies of Versailles and Voltaire, as well as amusing novels about the British upper classes. (Her famous essay on U and non-U language was not intended to be taken seriously).

The real attraction of France, though, was Gaston, who was a brave man but a hopeless philanderer. Hilton believes she was “much better equipped to deal with infidelity than many women today. Within her social class, adultery was regarded as entirely routine.”

This relationship lasted throughout her life although he had a child by another woman and married a third, who happened to own “one of the most wonderful chateaux in France”.

Even when she was dying, she forced herself to be an amusing companion when he dropped in.

Some reviewers seem to think this was all very adult and civilised. I find it depressing.

Still, Nancy undoubtedly had a more interesting life than if she had stayed where she was born and dwindled into becoming a maiden aunt.