The terms of the separation announced by the Tribunal in Saint Petersburg forced Anatole to pay annual alimony of 200,000 French francs.

Anatole vigorously pursued the return of his property, which led Mathilde and her strong circle of literary friends to mount highly personal and unfair counter-attacks using the public media.

Princess Mathilde lived in a mansion in Paris, where, as a prominent member of the new aristocracy during and after the Second French Empire, she entertained eminent men of arts and letters at her salon.

In 1896, she was invited to a ceremony at Invalides by Félix Faure at a visit of Emperor Nicholas II Russia and his wife Empress Alexandra.

An aged Princess Mathilde makes a brief appearance in Proust's À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs (In the Shadow of Young Girls In Flower), the second volume of In Search of Lost Time.

Princess Mathilde is referred to several times in Gore Vidal's novel 1876 as being a friend of the fictional narrator, Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler.