ABSTRACT
On 14 March 1918, Robert Le Bret’s reception rooms at number 6 Avenue Marceau had trouble in accommodating the crowd of guests. The master of the house, a descendant of an old family of intendants [administrators] of the kingdom,1 a lawyer by training but living on his private income, and his wife, Alice Le Bret, née Chauchat, daughter of a member of the Council of State, were regular guests at society receptions. But this time the reception was out of the ordinary. The hundred guests who were crowded in had come to sign the birth certificate of a new association. A single aim was the cause of their enthusiasm, until then a too neglected social peril against which they had decided to fight: cancer. The assembly contained a number of prominent personalities, known for their charitable opinions and their commitment. Baron Henri de Rothschild, already involved in the Association for the Study of Cancer, was present, as well as Baron Edouard and two other Governors of the Bank of France, Félix Vernes and François de Wendel and several merchants and businessmen. They rubbed shoulders with several of the faculty masters, the dean, Roger Hartmann, Achard, Jean-Louis Faure, Maurice Letulle, Ménétrier and Mesureur, the ex-director-general of the Assistance Publique, who could not be excluded from this type of initiative. Roux was also there, with Claudius Regaud who, some years earlier, could not have been imagined in this company. As far as ladies were concerned, there were many who, like the old Duchess of Uzès, took a personal part in the organisation of the care of the wounded.
