The man who returned to Paris at the beginning of September 1944 was not the same as the man who had left France in June 1940. The professor of law had become a national and an international leader. The jurist who, through his work for veterans, had been close to the political arena without having entered it through electoral mandate had been launched into the high politics not only of France but of the Allied world. He benefited from the cachet of being one of the first of de Gaulle’s close advisors. He had been responsible for the successful re-establishment of Republican legality. In the following years he would occupy numerous official positions. He would not, though, have a political career which his role in Free France might have prepared him for in 1944 or after, even after de Gaulle’s return to power in 1958. He would never become a major political figure, but rather would serve as one of the highest civil servants in France. How can we account for his personal trajectory?

The man in the portrait

If we had met René Cassin in 1944, we would have found a man in conservative clothes, befitting a professor of law. Not very tall – 5 feet 6 inches – his manner was open and lively. Like many of the men of his generation, he wore a beard, which he groomed carefully: while most shaved it off as they grew older, he kept it all his life, which gave him a certain distinguished air. Seeing this bearded man, the young volunteer Daniel Cordier immediately identified him in the entourage of de Gaulle. After the war Marceau Long referred to Cassin as having ‘that “beautiful white beard”’. Others spoke about his voice: ‘a low voice, at one and the same time, soft and authoritative’, as Pierre Racine said. Another man who worked with Cassin recalled his low voice ‘with its charming Mediterranean accent, and without rhetorical gestures’. No one described Cassin as an invalid: there was no trace in his comportment of the consequences of his war wounds, although he wore throughout his life a surgical belt.