The countess greatly enjoyed the company of her cousin, the exquisite aesthete Count Robert de Montesquiou, in concert with whom she was in contact with the cream of Parisian society, whom she regularly entertained at her salon in the rue d'Astorg.

They had one daughter, Élaine (1882–1958), who married Armand, 12th Duke of Gramont, half-brother of the openly bisexual writer the Duchess of Clermont-Tonnerre, who wrote about Élisabeth: "The Comtesse Greffulhe is always beautiful and always elsewhere.

"[2] The countess helped establish the art of James Whistler, and she actively promoted such artists as Auguste Rodin, Antonio de La Gandara and Gustave Moreau.

A recent biography demonstrates – relying in particular on research into the author's draft notebooks – that Countess Greffulhe and her family, who inspired several of the characters in À la recherche du temps perdu, played a major role in the genesis of the work and in the discovery of the "magic" name of Guermantes.

She organized a benefit concert as part of the 1889 Paris World's Fair with Handel's Messiah (in French, and in the Mozart arrangement) in the grand hall of the Trocadéro Palace, on June 10 1889, with Rose Caron, Blanche Deschamps-Jéhin, Edmond Vergnet and Numa Auguez, with organist Gabriel Fauré, all under the direction of Auguste Vianesi.

Its raison d'être was "the theatrical performance of unknown masterpieces" paid for by generous donors including composer Prince Edmond de Polignac or President Sadi Carnot.

[13] E. Greffuhle still continued her fund-raising activities, as announced by Le Temps in December 1904 : "A major artistic event has been organized for Thursday January 26 [1905] at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt to benefit the families of the Port-Arthur combatants.

E. Greffuhle organized the young Arthur Rubinstein's first concerts in Paris, debuting on November 28, 1904 at the Nouveau-Théâtre, notably in Camille Saint-Saëns' Concerto in G minor, in the presence of the enthusiastic composer.

The critic of Le Ménestrel, Arthur Pougin, was stingy of compliments, sparing only the interpretation of Emmy Destinn (Salome), "absolutely first-rate", Fritz Feinhals [de] (Jochanaan), who "displayed excellent diction", and the dancer who performed the "Dance of the Seven Veils", Natalia Vladimirovna Trouhanowa.

Countess Greffulhe introduced him to Gabriel Astruc, and together they organized five concerts of Russian music in Paris from May 16 to 30, 1907, under the patronage of the Société des Grandes auditions musicales de France, with the choirs and orchestra of the Association des Concerts Lamoureux conducted by Arthur Nikisch, Camille Chevillard and Felix Blumenfeld, with Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Glazunov and Sergei Rachmaninoff, as well as Félia Litvinne, Feodor Chaliapin, Elisabeth Petrenko and Dmitri Smirnov.

[24] In May and June 1908, they performed Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov at the Palais Garnier starring Feodor Chaliapin (and Smirnov, Vladimir Kastorsky, Ivan Altchevsky, Natalia Ermolenko-Yuzhina, E. Petrenko), conducted by Felix Blumenfeld.

In 1908 there was a grand party in the gardens of the Château de Versailles with actors from the Comédie-Française performing extracts from plays and reciting poems (including a sonnet by Count Robert de Montesquiou, the Countess's uncle) and, for the musical part (and ballet), Paul Vidal's Danses antiques; an aria from Alceste, an entrée from Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie; the Gavotte from Armide, Gabriel Fauré's Pavane and a Minuet by Handel, before a Louis XV-style fireworks display on the Grand Canal.

The evening was reserved for members of the Société des Grandes Auditions musicales de France, but 200 seats were sold for the benefit of the charity 'Assistance par le travail', whose aim was to provide an immediate salary for workers without a job.

The third part included an excerpt from Gounod's Polyeucte, followed by early music again, this time by Gluck, with a Suite de ballet, arias from Iphigénie en Aulide, the Musette and the Sicilienne from Armide.

On Thursday 27 April and 3 May 1911, Le Jugement universel, an oratorio by Don Lorenzo Perosi, was played at the Palais du Trocadéro, with Félia Litvinne, Povla Frijsh, Gabriel Paulet [fr], and 200 performers, conducted by the composer - the show was announced in newspapers in their "Charity" section.

The programme included Scheherazade (music by Rimsky-Korsakov, new sets by Léon Bakst); The Firebird, which Stravinsky conducted for the first time in Paris; dances from Prince Igor (Borodin); and Snegurochka).