As brother Jim Memmott tweeted: "Good heavens, what a life."
Read this New York Times obituary of Robert de La Rochefoucauld and we bet you'll say something like that too. As the Times writes, in World War II the French count's exploits as an agent for the British:
Count de La Rochefoucauld's "epic awesomeness," The Atlantic Wire notes, included:
— Being captured and condemned to death by the Nazis twice, but escaping each time.
— Faking an epileptic seizure to draw a guard's attention then killing the guard with a blow from a table leg.
— Dressing in a nun's habit to sneak past Nazi patrols.
— Blowing up a Nazi munitions factory. He smuggled the explosives "in hollowed-out loaves of bread," the Times writes.
— Parachuting into France twice. On one mission, he destroyed an electric substation and blew up railroad tracks, the Times says.
Also amazing to think about: at the age of 15, according to The Telegraph, "he was taken on a school trip to Berchtesgaden, Hitler's alpine retreat. The Fuehrer patted La Rochefoucauld on the cheek affectionately — at the time a dream come true for the 15-year-old, who along with his schoolmates had attached swastikas to their bicycles."
Four decades after the war, The Telegraph adds, the count testified for the defense at the trial of Maurice Papon, a Vichy official "accused of deporting 1600 Jews from the city." Papon claimed he had helped the resistance during the war, and Count de La Rochefoucauld said that was true. But Papon was convicted. Soon after, Papon fled to Switzerland — using Count de La Rochefoucauld's name and passport.
The count is, appropriately enough, being featured at the blog Badass of the Week.
Read this New York Times obituary of Robert de La Rochefoucauld and we bet you'll say something like that too. As the Times writes, in World War II the French count's exploits as an agent for the British:
"Were legend, involving an eclectic and decidedly resourceful collection of tools in the service of sabotage and escape, including loaves of bread, a stolen limousine, the leg of a table, a bicycle and a nun's habit, not to mention the more established accouterments of espionage like parachutes, explosives and a submarine."He died on May 8 at the age of 88. But as the Times says, "perhaps befitting a man whose wartime adventures were accomplished out of the public eye" word of his death is only slowly emerging.
Count de La Rochefoucauld's "epic awesomeness," The Atlantic Wire notes, included:
— Being captured and condemned to death by the Nazis twice, but escaping each time.
— Faking an epileptic seizure to draw a guard's attention then killing the guard with a blow from a table leg.
— Dressing in a nun's habit to sneak past Nazi patrols.
— Blowing up a Nazi munitions factory. He smuggled the explosives "in hollowed-out loaves of bread," the Times writes.
— Parachuting into France twice. On one mission, he destroyed an electric substation and blew up railroad tracks, the Times says.
Also amazing to think about: at the age of 15, according to The Telegraph, "he was taken on a school trip to Berchtesgaden, Hitler's alpine retreat. The Fuehrer patted La Rochefoucauld on the cheek affectionately — at the time a dream come true for the 15-year-old, who along with his schoolmates had attached swastikas to their bicycles."
Four decades after the war, The Telegraph adds, the count testified for the defense at the trial of Maurice Papon, a Vichy official "accused of deporting 1600 Jews from the city." Papon claimed he had helped the resistance during the war, and Count de La Rochefoucauld said that was true. But Papon was convicted. Soon after, Papon fled to Switzerland — using Count de La Rochefoucauld's name and passport.
The count is, appropriately enough, being featured at the blog Badass of the Week.
Robert de La Rochefoucauld, Wartime Hero and Spy, Dies at 88
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Published: July 9, 2012
Robert de La Rochefoucauld belonged to one of the oldest families of the French nobility, whose members included François de La Rochefoucauld, the author of a classic 17th-century book of maxims. For 30 years he was the mayor of Ouzouer-sur-Trézée, an idyllic canal town in the Loire Valley, and he used the aristocratic title of count.
But he is best remembered as a courageous and celebrated saboteur who
fought for the honor of France in World War II as a secret agent with
the British.
His exploits were legend, involving an eclectic and decidedly
resourceful collection of tools in the service of sabotage and escape,
including loaves of bread, a stolen limousine, the leg of a table, a
bicycle and a nun’s habit, not to mention the more established
accouterments of espionage like parachutes, explosives and a submarine.
And perhaps befitting a man whose wartime adventures were accomplished
out of the public eye, the news of his death, on May 8, in
Ouzouer-sur-Trézée, emerged slowly, first announced by his family in the
French newspaper Le Figaro and then reported late in June in the
British press. He was 88.
Robert Jean-Marie de La Rochefoucauld (pronounced ROASH-foo-coe) was
born on Sept. 16, 1923, in Paris, one of 10 children in a family living
in a fashionable area near the Eiffel Tower. He attended private
schools in Switzerland and in Austria, and, at age 15, he received a pat
on the cheek from Hitler on a class visit to his Alpine retreat at
Berchtesgaden, according to the British newspaper The Telegraph.
Two years later, Hitler’s army invaded France and Count de La
Rochefoucauld’s father was taken prisoner. Count de La Rochefoucauld
became a follower of Charles de Gaulle, who was assembling Free French
forces in England, and one day a postal worker tipped him off to a
letter he had seen that denounced him to the Gestapo.
With the help of the French resistance,
Count de La Rochefoucauld took a pseudonym and fled to Spain in 1942
with two downed British airmen, who were also being sheltered by the
underground. He hoped to go on to England and link up with de Gaulle’s
movement.
The Spanish authorities interned the three men, but the British secured
their freedom and were so impressed with Count de La Rochefoucauld’s
boldness and ingenuity that they asked him to join the Special
Operations Executive, the clandestine unit known as the S.O.E., which
Prime Minister Winston Churchill created in 1940 to “set Europe ablaze,”
as he put it, by working with resistance groups on the German-occupied
Continent.
Count de La Rochefoucauld was an asset to the British in another way. As
their ambassador in Spain told him, according to The Telegraph: “The
courage and skill of British agents is without equal. It is just that
their French accents are appalling.”
The British flew Count de La Rochefoucauld to England, where they
trained him to jump out of airplanes, set off explosives and kill a man
quickly using only his hands. They parachuted him into France in June
1943. There, he destroyed an electric substation and blew up railroad
tracks at Avallon but was captured and condemned to death by the Nazis.
While being taken for execution, he jumped from the back of his captors’
truck, dodged bullets, then ran through nearby streets, winding up
outside a German headquarters, where he spotted a limousine flying a
swastika flag, its driver nearby, the keys in the ignition. He drove off
in the car and then caught a train to Paris, hiding in one of its
bathrooms.
“When we arrived in Paris, I felt drunk with freedom,” The Telegraph quoted him as saying.
The S.O.E. later evacuated him to England by submarine, but in May 1944
he parachuted back into France. Dressed as a workman, he smuggled
explosives into a huge German munitions plant near Bordeaux, hiding them
in hollowed-out loaves of bread. He set off the explosives on May 20
and fled on a bicycle, but was caught by the Germans once more.
In his cell he feigned an epileptic seizure, and when a guard opened the
door Count de La Rochefoucauld hit him over the head with a table leg
and then broke his neck. He took the guard’s uniform and pistol, shot
two other guards, and escaped. Desperate to avoid recapture, he
contacted a French underground worker whose sister was a nun. He donned
her habit and walked unobtrusively to the home of a more senior agent,
who hid him.
The S.O.E. was disbanded in 1946. As an officer in the postwar French
military, Count de La Rochefoucauld trained French troops in the
Indochina war and the Suez campaign, in which the French joined Britain
and Israel against Egypt over control of the Suez Canal. He later
pursued international business ventures.
Count de La Rochefoucauld is survived by his wife, Bernadette; his son,
Jean; and his daughters, Astrid, Constance and Hortense, according to
The Independent in Britain.
Count de La Rochefoucauld was the mayor of Ouzouer-sur-Trézée from 1966
to 1996. His memoir, “La Liberté, C’est Mon Plaisir, 1940-1946,” was
published in 2002.
In 1997 he testified on behalf of Maurice Papon, who was being tried on
charges of deporting French Jews to their deaths in Nazi concentration
camps while Mr. Papon was an official with France’s wartime
collaborationist Vichy government. He told the court that Mr. Papon had
risked his life to help the Resistance and the Allies.
Mr. Papon was convicted of complicity in Nazi crimes against humanity
but fled to Switzerland while appealing. He was arrested at a Gstaad
hotel, where he had registered as Robert Rochefoucauld. One of Mr.
Papon’s lawyers said later that Count de La Rochefoucauld had given his
passport to Mr. Papon.
Mr. Papon was returned to France and served less than three years of his
sentence before being released. He died in 2007.
Count de La Rochefoucauld was a knight in the French Legion of Honor and
a recipient of France’s Medal of Resistance, and he was decorated for
bravery by the British. At his death he was believed to have been one of
the last living Frenchmen of Churchill’s S.O.E.
