Court of Appeals of Paris The Court of Appeal of Paris (french: Cour d'appel de Paris) is the largest appeals court in France in terms of the number of cases brought before it. Its jurisdiction covers the departments of Paris, Essonne, Yonne, Seine-et-Marne, Seine-Saint- ...

New York State Bar Association The New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) is a voluntary bar association for the state of New York. The mission of the association is to cultivate the science of jurisprudence; promote reform in the law; facilitate the administration of justice ...

Pierre Laval Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occ ...

Coco Chanel Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel ( , ; 19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularizing a sporty, c ...

Pierre Wertheimer Pierre Wertheimer (8 January 1888 – 24 April 1965) was a French businessman, who co-founded Chanel with Coco Chanel. Family business Wertheimer was born to a Jewish family,Chanel No. 5. He was the chairman of

Baccarat Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score ...

, the

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macro ...

manufacturer, from 1960 to 1992.

Early life

René de Chambrun was born on 23 August 1906 in Paris, France. His father, Aldebert de Chambrun, was a general in the

French Army History Early history The first permanent army, paid with regular wages, instead of feudal levies, was established under Charles VII of France, Charles VII in the 1420 to 1430s. The Kings of France needed reliable troops during and after the ...

, and his mother was Clara Eleanor Longworth, sister of

Nicholas Longworth Nicholas Longworth III (November 5, 1869 – April 9, 1931) was an American politician who became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He was a Republican. A lawyer by training, he was elected to the Ohio Senate, where he ini ...

, (who married

Alice Roosevelt Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth (February 12, 1884 – February 20, 1980) was an American writer and socialite. She was the eldest child of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and his only child with his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt. Lo ...

, daughter of the U.S. President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

). On his paternal side, he was a member of the aristocratic

Pineton de Chambrun The Pineton de Chambrun is a French aristocratic family, of which several members have taken an important part in French politics. Their nobility was proven in 1491. The Pineton de Chambrun originally come from the Gévaudan region, where many memb ...

family. Moreover,

Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza Pietro Paolo Savorgnan di Brazzà, later known as Pierre Paul François Camille Savorgnan de Brazza; 26 January 1852 – 14 September 1905), was an Italian-born, naturalized French explorer. With his family's financial help, he explored the Ogoou ...

was one of his paternal uncles. Chambrun's godfather was

Philippe Pétain Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain (, ) or Marshal Pétain (french: Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of Worl ...

. Chambrun was a great-great-grandson of

Lafayette Lafayette or La Fayette may refer to: People * Lafayette (name), a list of people with the surname Lafayette or La Fayette or the given name Lafayette * House of La Fayette, a French noble family ** Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757� ...

. As a result, he was both a French and U.S. citizen. His U.S. citizenship was questioned by members of the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

in 1942 due to his support for his father-in-law. Chambrun graduated from

Sciences Po , motto_lang = fr , mottoeng = Roots of the Future , type = Public research university'' Grande école'' , established = , founder = Émile Boutmy , accreditation ...

. He received a PhD in Law from the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

.

Career

Chambrun was a lawyer at the

Court of Appeals of Paris The Court of Appeal of Paris (french: Cour d'appel de Paris) is the largest appeals court in France in terms of the number of cases brought before it. Its jurisdiction covers the departments of Paris, Essonne, Yonne, Seine-et-Marne, Seine-Saint- ...

and the

New York State Bar Association The New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) is a voluntary bar association for the state of New York. The mission of the association is to cultivate the science of jurisprudence; promote reform in the law; facilitate the administration of justice ...

. By 1935, he helped establish a Franco-American cultural center in New York City to promote bilateral relations. The center was aimed at students and businessmen. When the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

broke out, Chambrun served as a captain, but, with the collapse of France looming by mid-May 1940, the Prime Minister,

Paul Reynaud Paul Reynaud (; 15 October 1878 – 21 September 1966) was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and militant opposition to Germany. Reynaud opposed the Munich Agreement of ...

, sent Chambrun as a special emissary to Washington to stiffen President Roosevelt's resolve to help the Allies. Between his first meeting with Roosevelt on 16 June and his last on 1 August, Reynaud's government had fallen. Later that year Chambrun published the book ''I Saw France Fall'', which helped to alert American opinion about the fate of his country. After the

Liberation of France The liberation of France in the Second World War was accomplished through diplomacy, politics and the combined military efforts of the Allied Powers, Free French forces in London and Africa, as well as the French Resistance. Nazi Germany inv ...

and the consequent fall of Laval's collaborationist government, Chambrun was a defender of Laval: The Chambruns threw themselves into the task of assisting Laval in his defense before the

High Court of Justice The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Senior Courts of England and Wales. Its name is abbreviated as EWHC ( Engl ...

. After Laval's sentence and execution in October 1945, Chambrun was put on police watch in Paris on the suspicion that he may have helped the Nazis during the war; in 1942 Chambrun had been named on a list of French collaborators with Germany to be killed during the war, or tried after it. By 1947, Chambrun officially applied for a U.S. passport. Meanwhile, Chambrun and his wife devoted their energies over the following decades to the cause of his rehabilitation in the eyes of history. For example, he wrote a letter to President

Dwight Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War I ...

in which he objected to his characterisation of Laval as "Hitler's most evil puppet" in his 1948 memoir entitled ''

Crusade in Europe ''Crusade in Europe'' is a book of wartime memoirs by General Dwight D. Eisenhower published by Doubleday in 1948. Maps were provided by Rafael Palacios. ''Crusade in Europe'' is a personal account by one of the senior military figures of Wo ...

''. Chambrun based his argument on another book authored by Spanish Foreign Minister

Ramón Serrano Suñer Ramón Serrano Suñer (12 September 1901 – 1 September 2003), was a Spanish politician during the first stages of the Francoist dictatorship, between 1938 and 1942, when he held the posts of President of the FET y de las JONS caucus (1936) ...

in which the latter quoted Hitler describing Laval as "no better than De Gaulle". By 1949, Eisenhower agreed to remove the passage from subsequent reprints. A decade later, in 1959, his wife wrote the foreword of ''Tout ce qu'on vous a cache'', a book based on "German secret files" authored by Jacques Baraduc, Laval's lawyer. The book attempted to show that Laval "refused repeatedly to yield to German demands for a reduction in the number of United States agents in French North Africa and a limitation on their activity." In 1969, Chambrun made an appearance in

Marcel Ophüls Marcel Ophuls (; born 1 November 1927) is a German-French documentary film maker and former actor, best known for his films ''The Sorrow and the Pity'' and '' Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie''. Life and career Ophuls was bo ...

's documentary on

collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...

between the

Vichy Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais. It is a spa and resort town and in World War II was the capital of ...

government and

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, ''

The Sorrow and the Pity ''The Sorrow and the Pity'' (french: Le Chagrin et la Pitié) is a two-part 1969 documentary film by Marcel Ophuls about the collaboration between the Vichy government and Nazi Germany during World War II. The film uses interviews with a Germ ...

'' (''Le chagrin et la pitié''). Chambrun wrote three books on the subject between 1983 and 1990. The Chambruns set up a foundation, the

Josée and René de Chambrun Foundation The Josée and René de Chambrun Foundation (french: Fondation Josée-et-René-de-Chambrun) is a French charitable foundation preserving Lafayette's home Château de la Grange-Bléneau. Recognized by the French government as a nonprofit organizat ...

, which collected documents on Laval for publication by the

Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, a ...

. After Laval's death, the Chambruns brought flowers to his grave every 15 October, to commemorate the day he was executed. After World War II, Chambrun was hired by

Peter II of Yugoslavia Peter II ( sr-Cyrl, Петар II Карађорђевић, Petar II Karađorđević; 6 September 1923 – 3 November 1970) was the last king of Yugoslavia, reigning from October 1934 until his deposition in November 1945. He was the last ...

when the latter filed for divorce in 1953; the couple reconciled two years later. He represented fashion designer

Coco Chanel Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel ( , ; 19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularizing a sporty, c ...

when she sued manufacturer

Pierre Wertheimer Pierre Wertheimer (8 January 1888 – 24 April 1965) was a French businessman, who co-founded Chanel with Coco Chanel. Family business Wertheimer was born to a Jewish family,Chanel No. 5. Wertheimer settled the case, and Chanel became a millionaire as a result. In 1970 Chambrun defended Greek shipping magnate

Stavros Niarchos Stavros Spyrou Niarchos ( el, Σταύρος Σπύρου Νιάρχος, ; 3 July 1909 – 15 April 1996) was a Greek billionaire shipping tycoon. Starting in 1952, he had the world's biggest supertankers built for his fleet. Propelled by both ...

over false allegations that he killed his ex-wife,

Eugenia Livanos Eugenia Livanos-Niarchos ( el, Ευγενία Λιβανού, ; 1927 – 4 May 1970) was the third wife of Stavros Niarchos. She was the daughter of shipping magnate Stavros G. Livanos and his wife Arietta Zafirakis. Her sister was Athina Livano ...

. Additionally, Chambrun was hired by Somerset Maugham's daughter to prove that she was indeed his daughter. Chambrun served as the chairman of

Baccarat Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score ...

, the

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macro ...

manufacturer, from 1960 to 1992.

Personal life and death

Chambrun married

Josée Laval Josée Laval (born Josette Pierrette Laval; – 9 January 1992) was an important figure of the régime de Vichy. She was the daughter of Pierre Laval and the spouse of René de Chambrun. Biographie Family She was born as Josette Pierret ...

(1911–1992), the only daughter of

Pierre Laval Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occ ...

in 1935. Their wedding was held at the town hall of the

7th arrondissement of Paris The 7th arrondissement of Paris (''VIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''le septième''. The arrondissement, called Palais-Bourbon in a r ...

, followed by the Sainte-Clotilde the next day. They resided 6 bis, Place du Palais-Bourbon in the 7th arrondissement. In 1935, he bought the Château de la Grange-Bléneau, a

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

in the ''

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

'' of Courpalay in the

Seine-et-Marne Seine-et-Marne () is a department in the Île-de-France region in Northern France. Named after the rivers Seine and Marne, it is the region's largest department with an area of 5,915 square kilometres (2,284 square miles); it roughly covers its ...

''

département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. Ninety ...

'' of France, from his cousin, Louis de Lasteyrie, a descendant of La Fayette, with a life tenancy. Upon Louis de Lasteyrie's death in 1955, Chambrun discovered the large cache of documents in the attic of the castle, and he founded a private museum about Lafayette. News of his discovery brought many historians to his door, but Chambrun denied access, except to

André Maurois André Maurois (; born Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog; 26 July 1885 – 9 October 1967) was a French author. Biography Maurois was born on 26 July 1885 in Elbeuf and educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, both in Normandy. A member of ...

whom he authorized to write a biography of Adrienne de Lafayette. Chambrun produced a book using the documents he discovered covering the period of 1792–97 when Lafayette was in an Austrian prison. He organized and described the family archives, a collection dating from 1457 to 1990. The papers were

microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. ...

ed at ''La Grange'' in 1995 and 1996, for the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

. It took two years and several microfilm teams from the Library of Congress to film the 50,000 pages. There are now two major "Lafayette collections" in the world: one is at the Fondation de Chambrun; the other, originally assembled by Elie Fabius, at

Cornell University Library The Cornell University Library is the library system of Cornell University. As of 2014, it holds over 8 million printed volumes and over a million ebooks. More than 90 percent of its current 120,000 periodical titles are available online. It ...

. Chambrun purchased a sword used in battle by Lafayette in 1976, outbidding the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...

. Chambrun served as the honorary president of the

Sons of the American Revolution The National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR or NSSAR) is an American congressionally chartered organization, founded in 1889 and headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. A non-profit corporation, it has described its purpose ...

in France. He became a ''Chevalier'' (

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

) of the

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

. Chambrun died on 19 May 2002 in Paris, France. His funeral, held at Sainte-Clotilde, was attended by

Diana Mitford Diana, Lady Mosley (''née'' Freeman-Mitford; 17 June 191011 August 2003) was one of the Mitford sisters. In 1929 she married Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, with whom she was part of the Bright Young Things social group o ...

, the widow of British fascist leader Oswald Mosley. He was buried at the

Montparnasse Cemetery Montparnasse Cemetery (french: link=no, Cimetière du Montparnasse) is a cemetery in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, in the city's 14th arrondissement. The cemetery is roughly 47 acres and is the second largest cemetery in Paris. The cemetery ...

.

Works

* * * * * * * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chambrun, Rene 1906 births 2002 deaths Lawyers from Paris Counts of France Sciences Po alumni University of Paris alumni People of Vichy France Order of the Francisque recipients Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Winners of the Prix Broquette-Gonin (literature) Sons of the American Revolution 20th-century French lawyers 21st-century French lawyers 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American lawyers French non-fiction writers Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery 20th-century American non-fiction writers French Army personnel of World War II French Army officers 20th-century American male writers French emigrants to the United States