The Last Baron

A riveting, on-the-edge-of-your-seat tale about the notorious 1978 kidnapping of Baron Édouard-Jean Wado Empain, intertwined with the story of his famous grandfather, the first baron and builder of the Paris Métro. A multigenerational saga told against the backdrops of both Belle Époque and 1970s high-fashion Paris.

What does it take to create a dynasty? What does it take to keep one going? And what does it take to save the life of the dazzling but flawed man who inherited it all? Launched in the 1880s by the first baron, the Empain industrial empire spread from Belgium and France to span more than a dozen countries. When Wado took over, he further expanded the company, became a key player in France s nuclear sector, and, by the mid-1970s, was one of the country s most powerful business leaders a self-described master of the universe. But these were also the years of lead, marked by a rash of high-profile kidnappings around the globe, including the headline-grabbing seizure of American heiress Patty Hearst.

Wado s vertiginous rise caught the eye of Alain Cailloll, a small-time gangster who had grown up in a wealthy family before embracing a life of crime. On January 23, 1978, Caillol and his confederates snatched the baron off the Paris streets, sure that they d get the 80 million francs they demanded in ransom. To show they meant business, they chopped off Wado s little finger and warned that more body parts would follow.

But nothing unfolded as the kidnappers, or Wado himself, expected. Would Empain s company pay? Could his family afford this astronomical sum? How much was the life of a leader, a father, and a husband worth? Most important, could a determined police chief and his crack investigators outsmart the kidnappers? The answers to those questions unspooled over two months in a tangle of events leading to a bloody showdown whose consequences would prove fatal to the Empain dynasty.

“Author Tom Sancton…plots out the shocking details of the crime and describes how it brought down one of France's most prominent business dynasties.”
—Town & Country

"In this sleek, two-track narrative, we see the power and promise of one of Europe's mightiest industrial dynasties—and then in stark and sometimes horrifying detail, we learn how quickly that world can unravel. Resourcefully reported, cleverly structured, and commandingly well-written by a keen observer of French society, The Last Baron offers a neat illustration, with certain Gallic twists, of that hoary aphorism: The bigger they come, the harder they fall."
—Hampton Sides, New York Times bestselling author of In the Kingdom of Ice

“The problem with The Last Baron is that it is very difficult to stop reading once you start. Somehow the book merges a taut, noirish crime caper told in 360-degree panorama with several layers of  France’s political, economic, and cultural history beneath. Sancton belongs to that impressive pantheon of American writers whose work has benefited from an immersion in Paris.”
—Thomas Beller, author of J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artist

“Gripping from the first page, Tom Sancton tells a deeply researched and propulsive story of one of France's most notorious crimes—a tale of deception, scandal, greed, and redemption. The Last Baron is the kind of page-turner that will stay with you long after it's over.”
—Daniel Stone, author of The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats
 
“Perfectly reported, The Last Baron rivets the reader’s attention with its you-are-there narrative of the kidnapping that seized the headlines in 1978. It also delivers keen insights into French politics and society as well as exploring a colorful family history that spanned two centuries and three continents, from the streets of Paris to the sands of Egypt and the jungles of the Congo.”
—Nicholas Reynolds, author of *Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy**: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961*

“An engrossing read about a multi-generational family dynasty and the lives they lived… an immensely readable, impeccably written, and thoroughly researched tale of a kidnapping gone wrong. Ideal for readers who enjoy biography, social, political, and cultural history.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

“Sancton’s briskly paced narrative moves smoothly through three generations of family history, a complex crime plot, and a century’s worth of social and political background. ‘You are there’ word pictures set the scene and capture character... It is a classic tale.”
—Booklist

"An entertaining, well-researched tale of a late-20th-century scandal.”
—Kirkus

“A doggedly reported and briskly entertaining history.”
*—Publishers Weekly

• Autorentext

  Tom Sancton

  Klappentext

  A riveting on-the-edge-of-your-seat story about the famous 1970s Patty Hearst-style kidnapping of Baron Edouard "Wado" Empain, juxtaposed with the story of his famous grandfather, the first Baron, who built the Paris Metro, all with the fascinating alternating backgrounds of both Belle Epoque and 1970s high-fashion Paris.

  What does it take to create a dynasty? What does it take to keep one alive? And what does it take to keep one man alive, once the society surrounding wealth, power, and influence in 1970s France begins to crumble, and society begins to question it all?

  Beginning in 1896, the first Baron Empain built both the Paris Metro and an empire from France to Belgian to Egypt that his grandson, Edouard (aka Wado) would inherit, diversify, and expand in the 1960s and 70s. But by 1978, the world had turned against industry and wealth, with high-profile kidnappings like Patty Hearst's happening around the globe. Alan Callioll, then a small-time gangster who had grown up in vastly different circumstances but was no less brilliant, and saw an opportunity. He and his confederates executed a successful kidnapping, snatching Wado off the Paris streets, sure that they'd get the 2 million francs they demanded in ransom.

  But nothing unfolded as the team, or Wado himself, excepted. Would Wado's company pay? How much was a leader, and a person, worth? And could the French police outsmart the kidnappers? The roots of each question lay deep in the past, back into the first Baron Empain's history, Wado's own parents and childhood, and the overall understanding of how the city that the Empain family built just might not need them anymore.

  Leseprobe

Chapter 1

 

Pride Before the Fall

 

His friends called him Wado, but the world knew him as Baron Edouard-Jean Empain. With his longish blond hair, blue eyes, and high cheekbones, he could have been mistaken for a movie star-some people compared him to Paul Newman or Robert Redford. Tall, square-shouldered, and athletic, he had been a champion skier and horseman in his youth. Now, at age forty, he 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.

 

Empain was half American and half Belgian, but his headquarters, his sumptuous apartment, and his ancestral chateau were in France, where he enjoyed a position of almost unrivaled influence. His conglomerate was so central to French economic and security interests that the papers dubbed him le Krupp francais-an allusion to the Krupp industrial dynasty that supplied armaments to German regimes from the Thirty Years' War to the end of the Third Reich. Hailed as a member of the…