Hélène de Portes

Hélène de Portes (1902-1940) was a countess of France. She is best known as the long-term romantic partner of Paul Reynaud, premier of France under the Third Republic at the time of its defeat in June 1940 at the hands of Nazi Germany.

Reynaud's premiership
The Countess de Portes, who was married to another man, was the partner of French politician Paul Reynaud from 1930 until her death in June 1940. As Reynaud rose in the 1930s through the upper ranks of his party, the Democratic Republican Alliance, Hélène's status moved upwards with him. She was described by insiders as La porte acôte, the side door through which interested persons could gain access to the state of mind of the French government. Reynaud entered cabinet in the early 1930s.

As the power of Nazi Germany grew, Reynaud was identified by many French voters and parliamentary deputies as a strong voice of resistance to Germany. He became Minister of Finance in 1938 and on 21 March 1940, after the successful German occupation of Poland, became Prime Minister of France. As such, he led a government whose status depended on its alliance with the United Kingdom. However, while the French alliance with England was strategic policy from the standpoint of the fight against Hitler, the alliance was obnoxious to the Countess, who has been described as "so violently anti-British that Hitler had once sent an emissary to woo her favours."

Reynaud's ability to lead his government against the Axis was compromised by his partner, who was on terms of friendship with the ambassadors from Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany.

Battle of France
After the catastrophic Battle of Sedan, the French forces and civilian government were forced to fall back from Paris. On 10–13 June 1940, Reynaud tried to re-establish his government at Tours. To reorganize the forces, he opened intensive negotiations on 12 June with the maverick general Charles de Gaulle, but the Countess personally intervened in their discussion and threw a temper tantrum, in their presence, at the prospect of what she considered to be futile further warfare. The premier adopted the strategic position of his mistress.

As the French front continued to collapse, Reynaud, his government, and the Countess de Portes briefly re-established themselves in Bordeaux on 15 June. Hélène intensified her efforts to persuade her partner to offer terms of surrender, going to the length of intriguing with a key diplomat from the United States of America. The disgusted envoy later recalled that "I don't think her role in encouraging the defeatist elements during Reynaud's critical last days as prime minister should be underestimated. She spent an hour weeping in my office to get us to urge Reynaud to ask for an armistice."

The Countess's final intervention on 16 June was aimed at the last-ditch plan, strongly supported by Winston Churchill and Jean Monnet, to merge France and the United Kingdom into an emergency Franco-British Union. The document to create the Union was meant to be presented to the French Cabinet that evening as an alternative to requesting an armistice, but de Portes literally entered the stenographer's room where the document was being typed, read it, and then left to spread its contents among the Cabinet ministers who were leaning toward defeatism. Forewarned, the Cabinet rejected both the Union and Reynaud's government. The beaten premier resigned that evening.

Now private citizens (Hélène's title of Countess, which she had taken on with her marriage, had no legal standing in the Third Republic), Reynaud and de Portes continued to drive southeast, away from the advancing German armies. On 28 June, Hélène de Portes was killed, and Paul Reynaud severely injured, in a one-car accident near Montpellier.

Epitaph
The journalist Noel Barber characterized Hélène as follows:

"The most powerful woman in France, she exercised a malign influence on the destinies of her country."