Pippa Middleton and the Paristocracy

Two months after the royal wedding last year, Pippa Middleton was partying with friends at a fashionable nightclub in Paris’s Saint-Germain-des-Prés. They were at Le Montana, one of the city’s sought-after party spots, hidden away in the basement of a six-story townhouse on the rue Saint-Benoît.

On that night the group she was dancing with, which included two young aristocrats, Francois du Chastel and Mary de Soultrait, went largely unnoticed.

A week ago, when Middleton returned to Paris for a weekend with the same group, the news - and photographs - spread to a rather wider audience. A barrister, Romain Rabillard, had been caught pointing what looked like a pistol at a photographer trailing his car as he drove Middleton to the station, creating an international media storm and prompting outsiders to speculate that she had fallen in with a risky new crowd.

And royal watchers were quick to suggest that Middleton’s Parisian friends were taking advantage of her fame when she appeared to have been paraded in front of cameras at the 30th birthday party of the aristocratic Arthur de Soultrait seemingly to publicise de Soultrait’s clothes brand ahead of a shop opening on the King’s Road.

But anyone nightclubbing in Le Montana with her last summer knows Middleton’s connection with de Soultrait and his flamboyant set is far from a recent relationship of convenience. Sources in Paris have confirmed that she is a “visiting member” of one of France’s most privileged social circles — a close-knit collection of aristocratic twentysomethings and their beautiful girlfriends who welcomed Pippa among their ranks several years ago.

“They found [this week’s press coverage] absolutely hilarious,” one of their friends told the Standard. “The fancy dress party was so not a big thing — they even had cameras there. They don’t do that at their real parties!” he said.

Until now, the de Soultrait set has operated largely under the radar, with little mention even in the Parisian press. They are not part of the city’s It group, whose recognisable names include singer Joséphine de La Baume and actress Léa Seydoux. This crowd have their roots in rural French society. “People don’t think of them as real Parisians,” a source told the Standard, “and they split their time between the town and their parents’ places outside.”

The central figures in the group are the de Soultrait brothers, Vicomte Arthur de Soultrait, 30, and his younger brother Marcy, 28, both of whom were in the car with Middleton and Rabillard. Arthur, who was photographed in a dog collar and chain at the fancy dress party last week, is the eldest son of an old family from Burgundy, where they have a château. His preppy clothes brand — Vicomte A — has made him one of France’s most successful young businessmen — he recently won the bid to supply ties to the French Olympic team.

The younger Marcy is the wilder child, whose sense of humour was lost on many earlier this week when he told the media the gun incident was “a very funny game” that no one in Paris was taking seriously.

Barrister Romain Rabillard has recently worked for German arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch and is said to be something of a Casanova figure.