Robert de La Rochefoucauld Comte Robert Jean Marie de La Rochefoucauld ( September 16 , 1923 - May 8 , 2012 ) was a member of the French Resistance and Special Operations Executive during World War II , as well as the mayor of Ouzouer - sur - Trézée - a canal town in the Loire Valley , France - from 1966 to 1996 . Robert de La Rochefocauld is remembered for his courageous exploits during the war as a heroic spy and saboteur , involving an eclectic and resourceful collection of tools in the service of sabotage and escape as well as the common accouterments of espionage , such as parachutes , explosives , and a submarine . In honor of his work as for France and as a secret agent for the British during the war , he was awarded the orders Chevalier de la Légion d ’ Honneur , Croix de Guerre , Médaille de la Résistance and the Distinguished Conduct Medal . Biography . Early life . Robert de La Rochefoucauld was born on September 16 , 1923 , in Paris , one of 10 children in a family living in a fashionable area near the Eiffel Tower . A son of Olivier de La Rochefoucauld , his family was part of the French nobility and Robert de La Rochefoucald used the aristocratic title of count in his later life . He studied at private schools in Switzerland and Austria , and , at age 15 , he received a pat on the cheek from Adolf Hitler on a class visit to his Alpine retreat at Berchtesgaden . World War II . Robert de La Rochefoucauld was age 16 during the German invasion of France in May 1940 . Count de La Rochefoucauld ' s father was taken prisoner , and Count de La Rochefoucald became a Gaullist ( a follower of Charles de Gaulle , who was assembling Free French Forces in England . One day , a postal worker tipped him off to a letter he had seen that denounced him to the Gestapo . Thus , he was sent by his parents into hiding in Paris , where he decided at age 18 to join General de Gaulle . French Resistance . With the help of the French Resistance , Count de La Rochefoucald 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 ( under Francisco Franco ) interned the three men in the prison camp Miranda de Ebro , but Count de La Rochefoucald pretended to be English and was delivered to the British Embassy during an organized evacuation The British , having secured the men ' s freedom , were so impressed with Count de La Rochefoucald ' 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 . Received by Charles de Gaulle in which he expressed his dilemma ( choosing between the S . O . E . or the Free French Forces ) , he was encouraged to choose the SOE if even to ally with the devil , " If it is for France , then go ahead " . Work for the S . O . E . . The British flew Count de La Rochefoucald to London , England , where they trained him to jump out of airplanes , set off explosives and kill a man quickly using his hands . They parachuted him into France in June 1943 . In France , 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 . He ended up outside a German headquarters , where he spotted a limousine flying a swastika flag , its driver nearby and the keys in the ignition . He drove off in the car and then caught a train to Paris , hiding in one of its bathrooms . The Daily Telegraph quoted him as saying , " When we arrived in Paris , I felt drunk with freedom . " The S . O . E . later evacuated him to England by submarine , which was subject to an under depth charge attack . In May 1944 , Count de La Rochefoucald parachuted back into France . Dressed as a workman , he smuggled explosives into a huge German munitions plant in Saint - Médard ( near Bordeaux ) . Over the course of the four day mission , code named " Sun , " smuggled 40 kilos of explosives , concealed in hollowed - out loaves of bread and specially designed shoes , into the factory . He set off the explosives on May 20 and , after scaling a wall , fled on a bicycle . After sending a message to London ( the reply read simply : “ Félicitations ” ) he enjoyed several bottles with the local Resistance leader , waking the next day with a hangover . However , Robert de La Rochefoucald was soon imprisoned by the Germans once more in Fort du Hâ . In his cell , Robert de la Rochefoucald feigned an epileptic seizure , and when a guard opened the door Count de La Rochefoucald 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 . With the D - Day imminent , Rochefoucald didn ' t extract back to London , choosing instead to stay in France to help the Resistance overthrow the Germans . He carried out dozens of sabotage and espionage missions throughout the Normandy campaign as the Allies pushed the Germans back to Berlin . During one mission , he was captured by the Schutzstaffel , brought out to a field to be executed by firing squad , but before the Nazis could complete the execution , Robert de La Rochecouald ' s fellows in the Resistance occupied the Nazis machine guns , buying Robert time to leave safely . His final behind - the - lines assault came in April 1945 , when he led a night raid to knock out a casemate near Saint - Vivien - de - Médoc , on France ’ s western coast at the mouth of the Gironde . Paddling up the river , he approached the casemate , killed a guard there , and blew it up , forcing the Germans to pull back to their final defensive position on the sea at Verdon . Shortly afterwards , his knee was injured in a mine explosion , forcing him to take a month ' s leave . Count de La Rochefoucald made the trip to Berlin after V - E Day and got kissed on the mouth by Soviet Red Army officer Georgy Zhukov , who was then commander of the Soviet zone of occupation . Work after the war . The S . O . E . was disbanded in 1946 . As an officer in the postwar French military , Count Robert de La Rochefoucald trained French troops and conducted raids on the Viet Minh during the First Indochina War , as well as participating in the Suez Crisis , in which the French joined Britain and Israel against Egypt over control of the Suez Canal . He later pursued international business ventures , including running a banana company in Venezuela and living in Cameroon . Mayor of Ouzouer - sur - Trézée . Count de La Rochefoucald was the mayor of Ouzouer - sur - Trézée for 30 years ( from 1966 to 1996 ) . His memoir , " " La Liberté , C ' est Mon Plaisir , 1940 - 1946 " " was published in 2002 . Maurice Papon trial . In 1997 , Robert de La Rochefoucald testified on behalf of Maurice Papon , who was being tried on charges of deporting 1600 French Jews to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps while Mr . Papon was an official with Franch ' s wartime collaborationist Vichy government . Robert de La Rochefoucald 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 Rochefoucald . One of Mr . Papon ' s lawyers said later that Count de La Rochefoucald had given his passport to Mr . Papon . Papon was returned to France and served less than three years of his sentence before being released . He died in 2007 . Death . The news of Robert de La Rochefoucald ' s death in Ouzouer - sur - Trézée emerged on May 8 , 2012 , first announced by his family in the French newspaper " Le Figaro " and then reported late in June in the British press . He was 88 years old . At his death Robert de La Rochefoucald was believed to have been one of the last living Frenchman of Churchill ' s S . O . E . Personal life . Robert de La Rouchefoucald belonged to one of the oldest families of the French nobility , whose members included François de La Rochefoucald , the author of a classic 17th - century book of maxims . De La Rochefoucauld married Bernadette de Marcieu de Gontaut - Biron ; they had one son named Jean , and three daughters ( Astrid , Constance , and Hortense ) .