Obituary Achille Clarac
OBITUARY ACHILLE CLARAC Older Thais and long-time residents of he developed with loving care a magnificent Thailand will be sad to learn of the news of rock garden beside his chateau. the death on 11 January 1999, in his 96th In retirement, apart from continuing to year, of Achille Clarac, former Ambassador read widely in French, English, and German, of France to Thailand from 1959 to 1968, in and sketching, he published a collection of his residence at Haute-Roche, Oudon. short stories under the pseudonym Saint He was bo~in 1903 in Nantes, and Ours, and worked at a volume of poetry, obtained his Licerlce-en-Droit in Paris. He but is probably best known here for the first entered the French Diplomatic and Consular modern guidebook to the country, service in 1930, and served in Washington, Discovering Thailand, written with Michael Teheran, Tetuan, Algiers, Lisbon, Smithies, and first published in 1971 by Chungking, Saigon, Baghdad, Munich, and Siam Publications. This subsequently went Syria. His last posting was as Ambassador through many editions with different in Bangkok, and he retired from Thailand publishers and in different languages. with the rank of Ministre Plenipotentiaire, Achille (Claude) Clarac married in 1935 hors classe. He was made Chevalier de la a Swiss heiress, Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Legion d'Honneur in 1946 and Officier de born in 1908 in Zurich. She is the 'Christina' la Legion d'Honneur in 1953. of Ella Maillart' s account of a journey from In addition to his diplomatic functions, Istanbul to Peshawar undertaken in a Ford he was a keen supporter of the arts.
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