Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay permanently stationed in Paris except in time of war. In 1776 de Launay succeeded M. de Jumilhac as Governor of the Bastille. As was the custom with many senior positions under the Ancien Régime, the marquis purchased the office of governor from his predecessor as a form of investment. The thirteen years that he spent in this position were uneventful, though on 19 December 1778 he reportedly made the mistake of failing to fire the cannon of the Bastille as a salute on the birth of a daughter (Madame Royale) to King Louis XVI. In August 1785 he was given
Bernard de Chalvron Bernard de Chalvron Bernard de Chalvron was a French diplomat, political advisor and member of the French Resistance during World War II. Bernard de Chalvon was a diplomat. He had royalist tendencies. In the early 1940s, he served as a political advisor on French Algeria to Marshal Philippe Pétain. He was later replaced by Jacques Tiné. In 1942, he joined the Noyautage des administrations publiques of the French Resistance. After its founder, Claude Bourdet, was arrested, de Chalvron served as its President. He gave copies of reports of meetings conducted by the Vichy government to the United States embassy in