Jacques Balsan

Louis Jacques Balsan (September 16, 1868 – November 4, 1956) was a French aviator and industrialist, born at Châteauroux (Indre) in 1868, who was the second husband of society beauty Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough.

Among his siblings was brother Étienne Balsan, the first patron of Coco Chanel,[2] and sister, Viscountess de Villeneuve-Bargemon of Davenescourt, France.

[4] During World War II, he joined the Free French forces in London, taking part in the operations that liberated southern France.

[1] Balsan first saw and immediately fell in love with wealthy American Consuelo Vanderbilt when she was 17, before her marriage to the 9th Duke of Marlborough.

Consuelo wrote to her close friend Winston Churchill, during World War II, while Balsan worked with the Free French in London, to request his special protection and safe return.

The Balsans were hosting Winston and Clementine Churchill in September 1939, just before the outbreak of war at their chateau Saint-Georges-Motel, near Dreux north of Paris.

They also owned a property in Èze (Alpes-Maritimes) where they received a number of celebrities such as the Duke of Connaught, a son of Queen Victoria, Jagatjit Singh, Maharajah of Kapurthala, and Charlie Chaplin.