Summary of Tom Sancton's The Last Baron

By IRB Media

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#1 In the 1970s, Baron Empain was the head of an industrial empire that comprised 174 companies and employed 136,000 workers in fields ranging from mining and metallurgy to banking, heavy construction, shipbuilding, armaments, and nuclear energy.

#2 France was experiencing a decade of political transition. The turmoil caused by the Paris-centered student uprising of May 1968 had settled down, though it hastened Charles de Gaulle’s departure from power in 1970.

#3 Empain was a man who valued privacy and discretion over flashy displays of wealth. He took pride in his title of nobility, though it did not descend from any ancient aristocracy. His life was carefully compartmentalized: he kept his family, his colleagues, his gambling partners, his mistresses, and his hunting buddies in separate, hermetically sealed boxes.

#4 Wado and his family spent their annual summer vacations at a villa rented from the American railroad heiress Florence Gould. They would pass their days on the beach hobnobbing with their rich friends, but there was one woman who preferred to play with the men: Shahnaz.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669390398

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Insights on Tom Sancton's The Last Baron

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In the 1970s, Baron Empain was the head of an industrial empire that comprised 174 companies and employed 136,000 workers in fields ranging from mining and metallurgy to banking, heavy construction, shipbuilding, armaments, and nuclear energy.

#2

France was experiencing a decade of political transition. The turmoil caused by the Paris-centered student uprising of May 1968 had settled down, though it hastened Charles de Gaulle’s departure from power in 1970.

#3

Empain was a man who valued privacy and discretion over flashy displays of wealth. He took pride in his title of nobility, though it did not descend from any ancient aristocracy. His life was carefully compartmentalized: he kept his family, his colleagues, his gambling partners, his mistresses, and his hunting buddies in separate, hermetically sealed boxes.

#4

Wado and his family spent their annual summer vacations at a villa rented from the American railroad heiress Florence Gould. They would pass their days on the beach hobnobbing with their rich friends, but there was one woman who preferred to play with the men: Shahnaz.

#5

In January 1978, the baron joined friends for a hunting party in Sologne, a thickly forested region in the Loire valley. The snows were heavy, but the hunt was excellent. The group bagged more than a hundred wild ducks.

#6

On January 23, 1978, Empain was kidnapped by four men as he left his apartment building. They shoved a gun against his temple, and told him to do as they said or they would kill him.

#7

The kidnapping of Baron Édouard-Jean Empain was a critical challenge for President Giscard d’Estaing, who immediately formed a crisis cell to ride herd on the case and give him daily briefings.

#8

After being kidnapped, Empain wondered if his captors were left-wing radicals who were going to kill him. His chauffeur told police that one of his kidnappers spoke German, suggesting the involvement of the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

#9

Empain was taken to an abandoned house in the country. His captors brought him to a underground tunnel that the Germans had used to store V-2 rockets during World War II. His captors brought him to an area they had prepared to house the captive.

#10

In 1978, the kidnapped baron was given a text that demanded a ransom of 80 million francs, equivalent to $70 million today.