She's commandeered a billionaire's villa. The maternity suite is eight minutes away by gold helicopter. So why is Angelina Jolie insisting on giving birth in France? Because, naturellement, her twins will be reincarnations of their Gallic grandmother!
Dominating the hills high above the Riviera resort of St Jean Cap Ferrat, the Villa Maryland, as its name would suggest, owes more than a little to American ostentation.
Owned by Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, the vast £30 million Florentine-styled palace boasts 12 bedrooms, indoor and outdoor pools, and a manicured formal garden to rival any in the South of France.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in CannesIndeed, the stunning vista to the Mediterranean is spoilt only by not one, but two helipads (the latter, one presumes, for those annoying occasions when your luncheon guests insist on arriving at exactly the same time).
For Allen's current house-guests, however, access to such a convenient escape route is the chief appeal of this sumptuous residence.
Ensconced in these luxurious surroundings for the past three weeks have been Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as they prepare for the birth of their twins.
With the new arrivals expected in two months, the Hollywood couple are leaving nothing to chance. And like any mother-to-be, Angelina is determined to ensure help is on hand should the babies put in an early appearance.
Hence, a military-style set of contingency plans has already been methodically tried and tested.
Last week, for example, the couple and their four children boarded Allen's gold-painted helicopter for a second dummy run to the £2,000-a-night maternity unit of the Princess Grace Hospital in nearby Monaco, where a birthing suite has been reserved.
They have successfully trimmed the trip down to eight minutes door-to-door, and an army-trained pilot has been hired to be on 24-hour standby in case of emergencies.
And in the unlikely event that the weather makes it impossible to fly, Angelina has insisted on a fully functioning Plan B.
So earlier this week, they climbed into a blacked-out, chauffeur-driven Mercedes and, escorted by two SUVs containing their round-the-clock security detail, made the 30-minute drive inland to another private hospital in Grasse.
All of which might seem just a touch over the top, particularly as 32-year-old Angelina is already travelling with not only two trained nurses and a midwife, but her own gynaecologist.
Another eminent baby specialist, Dr Jason Rothbart, has agreed to be on hand in Los Angeles to offer advice over the phone to her medical team in France.
But given a host of recent health problems relating to her pregnancy, the Oscar-winning Miss Jolie is adamant that she would rather be safe than sorry.
In no particular order, she has been suffering from painful swollen legs, gestational diabetes and low blood pressure.
Much more concerning have been at least four fainting fits - one on an 18-hour flight from Iraq to Los Angeles earlier this year and another just before leaving for France, when she collapsed on the floor of their rented home in Texas.
For several hours, until she could feel the babies kicking again, the terrified actress was convinced she had lost them.
According to rumours circulating in Hollywood this week, her lover Pitt has been trying to persuade the Tomb Raider beauty to make life simpler by having the babies back home in America, where she had her other biological child, Shiloh, two years ago.
First she insisted they hole up for six months in a rundown block of flats in Paris, then arranged to fly to a remote desert town in Namibia for the birth.
Angelina has been able to mix her Gallic obsession with business this week by promoting three of her upcoming movies at the Cannes Film Festival. Traipsing along after her as usual is the 44-year- old Pitt and their menagerie of multinational adopted children.
And they have put on something of a show for the assembled paparazzi - taking the children to the beach with neighbours Bono and his U2 bandmate David 'The Edge' Evans, and stepping out this week for dinner with Clint Eastwood and Mick Jagger.
They even invited the world's media along with them to buy baby clothes for the new additions to their brood.
Of course, being so visible will not do any harm to the films Angelina is in Cannes to publicise. But there is a second reason why the couple are keen for some positive PR.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, they are anxious to draw attention away from a grainy video which has appeared on the internet this week and which depicts a scarily dishevelled Miss Jolie in what appears to be a seedy drugs den.
In the home movie she can be clearly heard rambling incoherently and seen rubbing her gums with her fingers (an act often associated with cocaine use) as a woman next to her openly smokes heroin.
The footage, alleged to have been taken eight years ago, also shows the actress struggling to keep her eyes open as she jabbers about sadomasochistic sex and, bizarrely, how she killed her childhood pets.
Gallic experience: Brad and Angelina take children Zahara and Pax for a stroll on a very rocky beach near to Bono's home in the South of France
It does not make for comfortable viewing, particularly for Pitt, who was, it transpires, unaware of its existence.
No wonder Angelina's large team of handlers and publicists in Cannes have issued a blanket ban on reporters questioning her about the tape.
For while it does not show Jolie taking drugs, it raises memories of her boasts, while still an up-and-coming star, that she had tried everything from cocaine to ecstasy, LSD and heroin.
None of which fits very neatly with her reinvention as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, and self-styled international champion of the needy.
Or more importantly, perhaps, Pitt's political aspirations (the actor is being tipped to run for office for the Democratic party and is said to be considering standing for mayor of New Orleans).
Certainly, such dubious behaviour will not go down well with voters in the religious South. Nor has it been well received by the embarrassed producers of the children's animated film Kung Fu Panda, in which Jolie appears as the voice of a tigress and which she has been promoting all this week.
Last night, one of her team in Cannes told me: 'The timing couldn't be worse, particularly as she's here to talk about a kids' film. We have known for a while that this video has been on the market and it seemed like the threat of it being released had gone away.
'But the people who have put it out obviously decided that it would do Angie most damage when she was on show in Cannes. It's not like she can just cancel everything, because she is contractually obliged to do PR for her new movies.
Angelina Jolie and her natural daughter Shiloh enjoying a trip to Central Park
'It is a part of her life she doesn't want to be associated with. To be perfectly honest, the whole thing has brought back some pretty unpleasant memories.'
Including, no doubt, the actress's admission to the mental unit of UCLA hospital in Los Angeles a year after the newly-released video was filmed.
The strain caused by the emergence of the damaging footage is said by sources close to her to be taking its toll on the pillow-lipped Angelina.
Friends say she is exhausted and irritable as she struggles with her pregnancy, caring for her young family and that tiring round of promotional appearances in Cannes (she has taken to having her Christian Louboutin heels lowered and wearing Nike insoles inside them to relieve her aching legs).
She is also said to have had a blazing row with Pitt over her insistence on carting her multinational caravan of children around the world with her.
The youngsters - Cambodian orphan Maddox, six, Vietnamese Pax, four, three-year-old Ethiopian girl Zahara and their natural daughter Shiloh - are being attended to by a team of nannies, while the couple attend a series of red-carpet premieres.
But reports in the States this week suggested that the upheaval caused by their constant travelling - the trip to France is the 18th time she has uprooted her children in the past year - is starting to tell on the two boys, Maddox and Pax.
They are said to be displaying behavioural problems because of their nomadic existence and the huge security presence that surrounds the family at all times.
Maddox, who in the past 12 months has attended schools in Prague, California, New Orleans, Texas and New York, is said to have been distressed at being forced to leave the bi-lingual Lycee Francais school in Manhattan at the end of last year.
Before their French jaunt, the Jolie-Pitts had been living in Texas for three months, while Brad has been filming the supernatural tale Tree Of Life with Sean Penn.
Angelina insisted on accompanying him, along with their children, after declaring she was too scared to stay in Los Angeles.
There has been a series of drug-related shootings near their home in the exclusive suburb of Los Feliz and earlier this month the window of a camper van owned by the couple was shattered after bullets were fired from a passing car.
The clan flew into the South of France in a private Gulfstream jet to set up camp at the mansion owned by the Microsoft mogul.
Allen is said to have offered them its indefinite loan. This, despite the fact that the couple have just shelled out £9.65 million on an 850-year-old, seven-bedroom French farmhouse near Aix- en-Provence.
They have been unable to move in there because the air conditioning they have had installed is still not working and Angelina refuses to return until workmen have solved a mould problem in the ancient house for fear it will affect the children's health.
They are also waiting for work to begin on a motorcycle track on the property for which bike enthusiast Brad has recently been granted planning permission.
Brad's boyish pleasures (he has had his favourite Ducati motorbike specially shipped to France) remain another source of tension between the couple.
Friends say Angelina is keen for him to concentrate on their charitable foundation and their project to build 150 homes in New Orleans for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, plus his fledgling political career.
She is also behind the appointment of Trevor Neilsen, a former White House aide to Bill Clinton, who has been recruited as the couple's personal 'philanthropic adviser'.
Brad, meanwhile, seems content with flying his light aircraft (he has just won his pilot licence).
Angelina with her son Maddox. Her two boys Maddox and Pax are said to be showing behavioural problems due to their nomadic existence and the huge security presence
He also likes to disappear to New York, where he has a £50,000-a-month tenancy on a five-bedroom, six-bathroom suite in Manhattan's ultra-glamorous Waldorf Towers.
He retreats there alone for what he calls 'Brad Time' away from his new family. Roughly translated, this consists of drinking beer and smoking with his friends.
But, given the pushy Angelina's insistence on continuing their strange French idyll and those plans she has for him to enter politics, Brad Time might have to take something of a back seat in the future.
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Brad Pitt and partner Angelina Jolie have said they would wed when everyone who wants to get married in the United States is able to do so Photo: AP
