Coco Chanel
As 1971 began, Chanel was 87 years old, tired, and ailing. She carried out her usual routine of preparing the spring catalogue. She had gone for a long drive the afternoon of Saturday, 9 January. Soon after, feeling ill, she went to bed early. She died on Sunday, 10 January 1971, at the Hotel Ritz, where she had resided for more than 30 years.
Her funeral was held at the Église de la Madeleine; her fashion models occupied the first seats during the ceremony and her coffin was covered with white flowers—camellias, gardenias, orchids, azaleas and a few red roses. She died in her infamous style, announcing: "You see, this is how you die."
Charlotte Bonaparte Gabrielli
An outspoken and undevious woman, the Italians referred to Princess Gabrielli as "a true Bonaparte". Her private correspondence was full of gossip on the Imperial court in Paris, and her own behaviour in society was sometimes a source of concern for the French Imperial family. Nevertheless, even after the fall of Napoleon, she always remained loyal to her uncle's memory, and had a particular affection for her paternal grandmother Madame Mère to whom she remained attached until her death at Palazzo Bonaparte-d'Aste, in the Roman Piazza Venezia, in 1836.