The late Bernadette Chirac was born into the middle of the bourgeoisie and grew up with the codes of the aristocracy. But was the one who was born Chodron de Courcel from the nobility?
Bernadette Chirac, whose death was announced on June 6 when she was 93 years old, is born under the name Chodron de Courcel. She was the daughter of the commercial director of the factories Jean-Félix Bapterosses and Co. and was raised in a bourgeois family with the codes of aristocracy. But did the former First Lady really come from the nobility as indicated by the particle of her last name?
“Bernadette Chodron de Courcel is a fairly strict aristocrat“
When Bernadette Chodron de Courcel met her future husband Jacques Chirac, in 1950, at Sciences Po, her family saw red. And for good reason, he does not belong to the aristocracy. “Bernadette Chodron de Courcel is a fairly strict aristocrat with the values of a young woman from the aristocracy of her time, intelligent and very conventional (…) Jacques Chirac is very different: he comes from a family of teachers, senior executives, that is to say the bourgeoisie. So when he meets Bernadette, it seems like a misalliance in her family.“, explained the journalist from The Express Michel Feltin-Palas, author of Chirac novel. The marriage finally took place in 1956, not without problems.
Is Bernadette Chirac really an aristocrat? A status that is not transferable…
However, if Bernadette Chodron de Courcel was raised as an aristocrat, it seems that she was not quite one. According to the media Point of viewit was in 1852 that Bernadette Chirac’s ancestors were offered the right to add “de Courcel” to their popular family name, “Chodron”.
Napoleon III had given the title of hereditary baron to one of his great-granduncles, Alphonse Chodron de Courcel. However, this status would not be transferable to non-direct descendants of this man. Theoretically, Bernadette Chirac and her parents could not have benefited from this title of nobility.
But some ancestors closer to Bernadette Chirac acquired a no less prestigious status, notably her uncle, Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel, a French diplomat who helped General de Gaulle during the appeal of June 18, 1944. And then, in the hearts of the French, Bernadette Chirac will forever remain the queen of the Yellow Coins.
