Jacques Balsan

Louis Jacques Balsan (September 16, 1868 – November 4, 1956) was a French aviator and industrialist, who was the second husband of society beauty Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough. He married her immediately after her divorce from the 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1921. and sister, Viscountess de Villeneuve-Bargemon of Davenescourt, France.

Jacques Balsan came from a manufacturing family who created and ran Balsan (Company) which supplied the French Army with uniforms from the time of Napoleon onwards which were the origin of the famous cloth "the blue horizon". The family's textile factories were situated at Châteauroux. the following month traveling over 1,345 kilometers (roughly 850 miles) from Vincennes to Opoezno, Russia. She was considered the most eligible woman of the late Victorian Age. A memorable portrait of her by Carolus Duran hangs at Blenheim Palace. Balsan married her on 4 July 1921 (when he was 52 and she was 44), after which she was styled 'Mme Jacques Balsan', until her death in 1964. Known for his attention to her, it was a very happy marriage. 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. Churchill obligingly facilitated his safe return to America.

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. Balsan supported his wife's work with French children. They lived in their hotel particulier in Paris, at 9 Avenue Charles-Floquet.

Consuelo Vanderbilt's ghosted autobiography The Glitter and The Gold refers to her time with Balsan as "gold", as opposed to the "glitter" of her earlier, aristocratic marriage. In it, she tells the story of the Balsans' daring escape from the Nazis through Spain to Portugal and eventually to America, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

Jacques Balsan died on November 4, 1956, at his home, 1 Sutton Place, New York City, in America. His death occurred less than a month after that of his stepson, Lord Ivor Spencer-Churchill, at the age of 57, in London on September 17, 1956. Balsan was buried in Paris. His widow died on December 6, 1964, at her home in Southampton, New York, and was buried next to Lord Ivor.

Honours