RARE \"Coco Chanel\'s Attorney\" René de Chambrun Signed Book For Sale

Up for sale a VERY RARE! "Coco Chanel's Attorney" René de Chambrun Signed "Les Prisons Des La Fayette" Book. 

ES-7301

René Aldebert Pineton de Chambrun (23

August 1906 – 19 May 2002), was a French-American aristocrat, lawyer,

businessman and author. He practised law at the Court of Appeals of Paris and

the New York State Bar

Association. He was the author of several books about World War II

and his father-in-law, Vichy France Prime Minister Pierre Laval, to whom he served as legal counsel. He

defended Coco Chanel in her

lawsuit against Pierre Wertheimer over

her marketing rights to Chanel No. 5. He was the chairman of Baccarat, the crystal manufacturer, from 1960 to 1992. René de Chambrun

was born on August 23, 1906 in Paris, France.[3] His father, Aldebert de Chambrun,

was a general in the French Army, and his mother

was Clara Eleanor Longworth,

sister of Nicholas Longworth, (who

married Alice Roosevelt, daughter

of the U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt).[4] On his paternal side, he was a

member of the aristocratic Pineton de Savorgnan de Brazza was

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

Chambrun

was a great-great-grandson of Lafayette. As

a result, he was both a French and U.S. citizen. His honorary U.S.

citizenship was questioned by members of the United

States House of Representatives in 1942 due to his support for

his father-in-law. Chambrun graduated

from Sciences Po. He

received a PhD in Law from the University of Paris.

Chambrun

was a lawyer at the Court of Appeals of Paris and

the New York State Bar

Association. 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 World War broke

out, Chambrun served as a captain, but, with the collapse of France looming by

mid-May 1940, the Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, 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. Chambrun married Josée Laval (1911–1992),

the only daughter of Pierre Laval in 1935. Their

wedding was held at the town hall of the 7th arrondissement of

Paris, followed by the Sainte-Clotilde the

next day. They resided 6 bis, Place du Palais-Bourbon in

the 7th arrondissement. In 1956, he bought the Château de la

Grange-Bléneau, a castle in the commune of Courpalay in from his cousin, Louis de Lasteyrie, a descendant of La Fayette, in

1935, 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 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 microfilmed at La Grange in 1995 and

1996, for the Library of Congress. It

took two years and several microfilm teams from the Library of Congress to film

the 50,000 pages. Lafayette's papers are now in the Cornell University Library.

Meanwhile, Chambrun purchased a sword used in battle by Lafayette in as the honorary president of the Sons of the American

Revolution in France. He became a Chevalier (knight) of the Légion d'honneur.