Count
Robert de La Rochefoucauld passed away at the age of 88. He was a man
of many talents, particularly (1) escaping captivity and (2) killing
Nazis. During World War II, while in the French Resistance, he did a lot
of both. Here’s just one of the many episodes featured in his obituary:
Instead he faked an epileptic fit and, when the guard
opened the door to his cell, hit him over the head with a table leg
before breaking his neck. (“Thank Goodness for that pitilessly efficient
training,” he noted). After putting on the German’s uniform, La
Rochefoucauld walked into the guardroom and shot the two other German
jailers. He then simply walked out of the fort, through the deserted
town, and to the address of an underground contact.
Once there, however, he found that joining the rest of his escape
line was impossible, as checks and patrols had been stepped up. Then the
man harbouring him, whose sister was a nun, suggested that La
Rochefoucauld slip into her habit. Thus dressed, he slowly walked
through the city, eventually knocking on the door of Roger Landes,
code-named Aristide, a bilingual Briton whom he hoped would take care of
his return to England. In fact, Aristide’s orders were to hide La
Rochefoucauld. D-Day was days away, and he was, by his own admission,
“the last of their worries in London”
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