Odile de Vasselot de Régné was born on Jan. 6, 1922, in Saumur, the seat of the French cavalry faculty, within the Loire Valley, to Gaston de Vasselot de Régné and Chantal de Cugnac.
She grew up largely in Metz, finding out with the nuns of the Sacred Coronary heart. Her father was stationed there earlier than the warfare, as was Colonel de Gaulle, who headed the 507th Régiment de Chars, or Mobilized Unit. She recalled taking part in with de Gaulle’s son, Philippe, as a baby.
She obtained her baccalaureate diploma in 1939 and, after the warfare, a level in historical past from the Sorbonne. In 1947, she joined the spiritual congregation of the Sisters of Saint Francis Xavier. In 1959, the congregation despatched her to Abidjan, in Ivory Coast, to begin a ladies’ faculty in cooperation with the progressive authorities of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the nation’s first president.
The college opened in 1962, and Ms. de Vasselot remained its director till 1988, when she returned to France. The Ivorian newspaper Fraternité Matin wrote not too long ago that “underneath the enlightened course of Mme. de Vasselot, this institution, way over a college, grew to become the important thing establishment that solid the feminine elite of this nation.”
No fast household survives Ms. de Vasselot. Her funeral mass was held on Tuesday on the Cathedral of Saint-Louis-des-Invalides in Paris, an honor reserved for France’s warfare heroes.
In November, as Mr. Macron was adorning her with the Nationwide Order of Advantage on the Élysée Palace, she responded with bracing words: “What I wish to say to younger folks is, ‘By no means quit, by no means quit, no matter difficulties you face.’”
