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 . She is the 'Christina' la Legion d'Honneur in 1953. of ' s account of a journey from In addition to his diplomatic functions, to Peshawar undertaken in a Ford he was a keen supporter of the arts. An car in 1939, and published as The Cruel accomplished artist and photographer Way in 1947 (recently reprinted in English himself, he acquired, while in Thailand, a and French). Annemarie-Christina was a large collection of modern paintings, and troubled soul, who then travelled in the was active in the functions of the Siam United States and Africa, and after returning Society. After his retirement, he divided his to died in a bicycle accident on time between a traditional Thai house he 15 November 1942. had built by the Chao Phraya at Phra 'Papa Clarac', as he was affectionately Padaeng and his estate of 35 hectares of known in later life, was buried in Nantes vines overlooking the Loire in France some on 15 January 1999 in the Misericorde 30 km east of his native Nantes. With cemetery, and leaves an adopted son, Henri increasing years, though, it became more Pageau-Clarac, well known for his leading difficult for him to reach his Thai riverside numerous tours upcountry for the Siam home by boat, and he settled permanently Society. in France, where he continued to receive old friends known in Thailand, and where M.S.

8 Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 86, Parts 1 & 2