Robert de La Rochefoucauld belonged to one of the oldest noble families in France. He was a descendant of Francois de La Rochefoucauld, author of a book-century classic of 17 maximum.
For 30 years he was mayor of Trézée-sur-Ouzou, an idyllic village on the canal of the Loire Valley, and use the noble title of Count.
But is particularly remembered as a brave and famous saboteur who fought for the honor of France in World War II as a secret agent with the British.
His exploits are legendary, involving a very eclectic collection of resources and tools to service sabotage and escape, including loaves of bread, a stolen limousine, not the leg of a table, a bike and a nun's habit, to mention the most successful spy devices such as parachuting, explosives and a submarine.
And perhaps corresponds to a man's adventures in wartime were carried out through the eyes of the public, the news of his death on May 8, Trézée-sur-Ouzou, emerged gradually, announced first by his family to Le Figaro newspaper in France and then returned in late June, the British press. He was 88.
Robert Jean-Marie de La Rochefoucauld (pronounced foo-to-Roash Council of Europe), was born September 16, 1923, in Paris, one of 10 children of a family living in a fashionable area of ??the Eiffel Tower. He attended private schools in Switzerland and Austria, and, at the age of 15 years, has received a slap on the cheek by Hitler in his class to visit the Alpine retreat of Berchtesgaden, the British newspaper The Telegraph.
Two years later, Hitler's army invaded France, and the father of M. the Rochefoucauld was taken prisoner. M. the Rochefoucauld became a follower of Charles de Gaulle, who was the editor Free French forces in England, and one day an employee of the emails warned that a letter had been denounced to the Gestapo.
With the help of the French resistance, he took a pen and fled to Spain in 1942 with two British airmen who were also being slaughtered by metro. I was hoping to go to England and link up with the movement of De Gaulle.
The Spanish authorities were interned three men, but the British secured their freedom and were so impressed with the enterprising M. de La Rochefoucauld who asked him to join the Directorate of Special Operations, the unit secret known as SOE, the Prime Minister Winston Churchill created in 1940, in his words, "put Europe in flames," in collaboration with the resistance groups on the continent occupied by the Germans.
M. the Rochefoucauld was an advantage for the British in another way. As its ambassador in Spain, said, according to the Telegraph: "The courage and skills of British agents is unmatched 's just that his French accent is terrible. ".
The British flew Mr. de la Rochefoucauld in England to train to jump from airplanes, to blow up the explosives and kill a man faster using only their hands.
He parachuted to France in June 1943. There, he destroyed an electrical substation and railroad tracks were flown at Avallon, but was captured and sentenced to death by the Nazis.
While being taken to execution, he jumped from the back of the truck of his captors, dodged bullets, and then ran through the streets near the edge of the settlement of a headquarters Germany, where he realized a limousine flying the flag with the swastika, its driver Near there, the keys in the ignition.
He entered the car and then took a train to Paris, hidden in one of their bathrooms.
"When we arrived in Paris, I felt drunk with freedom," the Telegraph quoted the saying.
The S.O.E. he later evacuated to England with a submarine, but in May 1944 was parachuted in France. Dressed as a workman, he was smuggling explosives in a huge German munitions factory near Bordeaux, hidden in hollowed bread loaves.
It was launched on 20 May explosives and fled on a bicycle, but was captured by the Germans once again.
In his cell, he pretended an attack of epilepsy, and when a guard opened the door of M. de La Rochefoucauld hit him in the head with a table leg and then broke his neck.
He took the guard's uniform and gun, fired two more guards, and escaped and contacted an employee of the French Resistance, the sister was a nun. He wore the dress and went quietly to the house of a senior official, who was hiding.
The S.O.E. disbanded in 1946. As a military officer in the war with France, Mr. de la Rochefoucauld troops trained in the French war in Indochina, the Suez campaign, when France joined Britain and Israel against Egypt for control of the Suez Canal. Later, followed by international business companies.
M. the Rochefoucauld is survived by his wife, Bernadette, his son, Jean, and their daughters, Astrid, Constance and Hortensia, according to The Independent in Britain.
M. Rochefoucauld was the mayor-sur-Ouzou Trézée 1966-1996. His memoirs, "La Liberté C'est Mon Plaisir, 1940-1946" was published in 2002.
In 1997 he pleaded on behalf of Maurice Papon, French exfuncionari wartime collaborationist Vichy government, which had been tried on the charge of the deportation of Jews from France were sent to Nazi death camps. M. the Rochefoucauld told the court that Mr. Papon had risked their lives to help the resistance and the allies.
Mr. Papon was convicted of complicity in Nazi crimes against humanity but fled to Switzerland while appealing. It was arrested at a hotel in Gstaad, where he was registered as Robert Rochefoucauld. One of Mr. Papon's lawyers later said that Mr. de La Rochefoucauld gave his passport to Mr. Papon.
Mr. Papon was returned to France and has less than three years of his sentence before being released. He died in 2007.
M. Rochefoucauld was a knight of the French Legion of Honour and a recipient of the Medal of the French Resistance, and was decorated for his bravery by the British. At his death, is believed to have been one of the last French life SOE Churchill
