Editing Natalie Clifford Barney (section)

==World War II and after==
Barney's attitudes during World War II have been controversial.  In 1937, [[Una Vincenzo, Lady Troubridge|Una, Lady Troubridge]], complained that Barney "talked a lot of half-baked nonsense about the tyranny of fascism".{{sfn|Souhami|1999|p=332}} Barney herself had [[Jewish]] heritage,{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|p=311}} and since she spent the war in Florence with Brooks, was investigated by Italian authorities because of this; she was able to escape their attention after her sister Laura arranged for a [[Notary public|notarized]] document attesting to her [[confirmation]].{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|p=324}} 

Nevertheless, she believed [[Axis Powers|Axis]] propaganda that portrayed the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] as the aggressors. Therefore, pro-Fascism seemed to her to be a logical consequence of her pacifism. An unpublished memoir she wrote during the war years is pro-Fascist and [[anti-Semitic]], quoting speeches by [[Hitler]], apparently with approval.{{sfn|Livia|1992|pp=192–193}}

It is possible that the anti-Semitic passages in her memoir were intended to be used as evidence that she was not Jewish;<ref>{{harvnb|Livia |1992|p=191}}.  {{harvnb|Rodriguez|2002|p=315}} calls this a plausible theory.</ref> alternatively, she may have been influenced by Ezra Pound's anti-Semitic radio broadcasts.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|p=317}} Whatever the case, she did help a Jewish couple escape Italy, providing passage on a ship to the United States.{{sfn|Livia|1992|pp=192–193}} By the end of the war her sympathies had again changed, and she saw the Allies as liberators.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=326–327}}

''Villa Trait d'Union'' was destroyed by bombing. After the war, Brooks declined to live with Barney in Paris; she remained in Italy, and they visited each other frequently.{{sfn|Secrest|1974|p=368}} Their relationship remained mostly [[monogamous]] until the mid-1950s, when Barney met her last new love, Janine Lahovary, the wife of a retired Romanian ambassador.  Lahovary made a point of winning Brooks's friendship, Barney reassured Brooks that their relationship still came first, and the triangle appeared to be stable.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=341–344}}
[[File:Natalie eta Laura Clifford Barney-ren hilobia.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|Barney's grave]]
The salon resumed in 1949 and continued to attract young writers for whom it was as much a piece of history as a place where literary reputations were made.  [[Truman Capote]] was an intermittent guest for almost ten years; he described the decor as "totally turn-of-the-century" and remembered that Barney introduced him to the models for several characters in Marcel Proust's ''In Search of Lost Time''.{{sfn|Wickes|1976|pp=255–256}} 

[[Alice B. Toklas]] became a regular after her partner Stein's death in 1946. Fridays in the 1960s honored [[Mary McCarthy (author)|Mary McCarthy]] and [[Marguerite Yourcenar]], who in 1980—eight years after Barney's death—became the first female member of the French Academy.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=336, 353–354}}

Barney did not return to writing epigrams, but did publish two volumes of memoirs about other writers she had known, ''Souvenirs Indiscrets'' (''Indiscreet Memories'', 1960) and ''Traits et Portraits'' (''Traits and Portraits'', 1963).  She also worked to find a publisher for Brooks's memoirs and to place her paintings in galleries.{{sfn|Souhami|2005|p=194}}

In the late 1960s Brooks became increasingly reclusive and paranoid; she sank into a depression and refused to see the doctors Barney sent.  Bitter at Lahovary's presence during their last years, which she had hoped they would spend exclusively together, she finally broke off contact with Barney.  Barney continued to write to her, but received no replies. Brooks died in December 1970, and Barney on February 2, 1972, aged 95, from heart failure.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2002|pp=362–365}} She is buried at [[Passy Cemetery]], Paris, Île-de-France, France.{{sfn|Hawthorne|2012|p=91}} She left some of her writing, including more than 40,000 letters, to the [[Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques-Doucet]] in Paris.{{sfn|Jay|1988|p=xiii}}