Grand Duke Andrei and his wife liked to gamble. Mathilde dissipated their remaining wealth, including her own valuable jewel collection, at the gambling tables of Monte Carlo—the remainder was lost in the crash of 1929. With their resources completely depleted, they sold their house in Cap-d'Ail on 4 February 1929, moving the next day to Paris. There they settled in the Villa Molitor in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. To provide for the family, Kschessinska opened a ballet school in 1929 in a studio close to their house. Her students included some of the greatest classical ballet dancers of all time: Margot Fonteyn, Alicia Markova, André Eglevsky, Tatiana Riabouchinska and Tamara Toumanova.