Word: frans
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That was the heritage which fell to the present François de Wendel when he was born in 1874. The century into which he grew was to live and die by steel-much of it De Wendel steel...
...François de Wendel became manager of "The Grandsons of François de Wendel and Company," which he built into one of France's largest steel works. His brother Guy was a senator of France. His brother Charles was a member of the German Reichstag. During World War I, the De Wendels were suspected of playing both sides of the Rhine...
Wave of Indignation. When peace broke out, François de Wendel became chairman of France's famous Comité des Forges, a sort of super lobby combining all of France's steel, iron and armament firms. He sold arms to white men, black men, yellow men. When governments opposed him, he felled them by withholding credit in his capacity as a regent of the Bank of France. When newspapers opposed him, he bought them. In the French "Who's Who," he described himself simply as "Maître de Forges" (iron master...
Burial in the Rain. During World War II, as in the first war, the De Wendel holdings were barely damaged. At war's end, François was accused, but eventually cleared, of collaboration with the Germans. He retired to his family seat at Hayange, in Lorraine. There, last week, death-whose conquests he had so ably aided in his lifetime-came to Armorer François de Wendel...
...French press took small notice of his passing. Wrote one Paris paper: "Let this be a lesson to generals. The cannon-makers die in bed." In Hayange, the De Wendel family and 15,000 De Wendel workers gathered in a drizzling rain around the village church to bury François de Wendel. On the day he died, he had become a grandfather. His only son's child was named François, so that another François de Wendel could some day be iron master, provided (as seemed likely) that Europe would still need armorers...