Biography Louis Renault

From 3arf

Today Renault is a name associated with mass production quality automobiles, but in 1944 in a prison at Fresnes in France, the name Renault was associated with collaboration and with a mysterious death.

The man who gave his name to the car giant, was himself a short tempered man, known to being ungenerous and often downright rude. He did, however, have a single-minded approach to work that led many of his contemporaries to compare him to the American Henry Ford.

Louis Renault had been born into a Parisian family that had grown wealthy as merchants and button manufacturers. His parents, having moved from Angers to outside Paris in the 1850's. Louis was the last of five children and was born on February 12 1877. His childhood was privileged, if somewhat unremarkable but was marked by his failure at school, where he attended the local Lycee Condorcet. The young Renault was remarkable though insofar as he was mechanically minded and by the age of twelve he had installed an electric light in his room, quite unusual for the time. The light was powered by zinc plates and an acid bath, which was controlled by a series of ropes attached to a lever near to his bed. Two years later his father was persuaded by his son to buy him an old Panhard engine on which Louis Renault tinkered for hours. Such was his mechanical talent that by the age of nineteen Renault, while working for the Boilermakers Delaunay-Belleville, secured his first patent for a steam boiler. His family were unsure whether his talent was best served in the family shed at the end of the garden and so Louis Renault spent a year in the French military between before returning to his first love, all things mechanical.

In his 21st year, Louis Renault entered automobile history at the beginning of a career that established a French super motor company. His fascination with motor vehicles stemmed from an earlier incident when the young man was given a ride in a steam car with the designer Leon Serpollet. The year was 1898 and noisy, smelly contraptions called automobiles had started to startle horses and pedestrians on the streets of the French Capital City. Louis Renault was a brilliant engineer, with an eye for a mechanical solution to problems that beset the inventors of the era. Through determination and the study of the science of automotive's Louis developed new technologies. In 1898 he invented the first direct drive gearbox and promptly installed it into a small two seat vehicle, which was christened, the Voiturette, simply meaning carriage or carrier. To today's eyes the vehicle looks quaint and a little awkward with a steering wheel placed upon a vertical column, something like a spinning plate on a stick. Four wheels were mounted on each corner, although the rear pair was slightly larger than those at the front were. A small engine was mounted in front of the driver who was perched quite high up on an upholstered seat. The seat itself could at a push take two people of relatively normal size. Louis Renault displayed this vehicle to a number of his friends on Christmas Eve 1898 and within days he already had secured orders for 60 replicas.

Such was the success of this and other vehicles that Louis and his two brothers, Fernand and Marcel joined forces to manufacture and sell automobiles. The three brothers put their collective wealth of 40,000 francs and talents into the company and in 1899 the firm of Renault Freres was launched in a factory at Boulogne Billancourt. Marcel ran the office; Fernand sold the cars and Louis was the man who oversaw their construction. The company of divided equally between the three brothers, except for two-percent holding that their mother held in the company.

The early days of the 20th century saw the Renault brothers competing in racing trials, taking their cars to races to compete against the best vehicles in Europe. Louis and Marcel both won a number of races and following success in the Paris to Bordeaux race of 1900 the company received no fewer than 350 new orders. Tragedy would strike, however when three years later Marcel was killed in the infamous Paris to Madrid race. He was killed near to Angouleme along with nine spectators. After mourning for his lost brother, Louis set about establishing control of the company. Marcel had willed everything he owned including his share of the company to his mistress, Suzanne Daveney. Fearing that she might marry and have children, Louis bought out her share of the company; but paid Daveney off handsomely with an annual payment and a brand new car every year until her death in 1953. Louis and Fernand continued the business without their sadly missed brother. 1907 and after many years of asking, Louis finally bought out his surviving brothers share of the business, now he owned 98 percent of the company and was truly in control. Two years later in 1909, Fernand died of a liver complaint leaving Louis to continue on his own.

A car had in the early 1900's become a much-prized status symbol for Europe's well to do and Louis Renault had grown rich from the trade. The Great War made him even richer, when the plant manufactured vehicles for the war effort. Some idea of the growth can be gauged by the increase in the firm's workforce. In 1914 the Societe des Automobiles Renault employed 4,400 by the end of the Great War that figure had risen to 22,000. Added to this, Renault had established no less than thirty-one dealers in foreign countries together with a planned factory in St Petersburg. Out of the factory at Billancourt also came the weapons of war, such as trucks, shells and even aircraft. During the war Louis Renault had became president of the French Automobile Manufacturers Association and it was under his direction that the French war effort was controlled. It was his autocratic manner that allowed him to organise large sectors of French industry and focus them into the war effort.

Louis Renault took a wife in 1918 her name was Christine Boullaire. Boullaire was the daughter of a well to do Paris notary and the marriage was deemed a success when she gave birth to a single son, Jean-Louis two years later.

His company survived the war, but in post war Europe Renault found a great deal of competition both at home and from imported mass produced Ford's from the United States. In France, Renault's main competitor was Citroen, who by 1929 were producing roughly double the number of vehicles as Renault. Five years later Citroen was in a deep financial crisis, which left Renault as the principal French Industrial influence. However, his tenure upon this summit was to be short lived.

French workers striked for better pay and conditions in 1936 forcing car production virtually into extinction. Somehow car production did, however, continue, but worse was to come in 1940, when France surrendered to the German's following their Blitzkrieg across Europe.

The German's needed vehicles and Louis Renault's precious company was forced to build them for the German Army. The Allied bombing of the area around Billancourt saw the destruction of 80 percent of the factory and wrecked large numbers of vehicles. Despite trying to delay the construction of war materiel Renault became despised by the French resistance but survived the war. He was arrested outside Paris on September 22 1944 and accused to treason and sent to the Prison at Fresnes. No one knows exactly how Louis Renault, met his death, but it is rumored he was poisoned. One month after entering the prison he was found dead at the age of 67 on October 24 1944.

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