Magda Fontanges

Magda Fontanges (10 May 1905 – 1 October 1960), also known as Madeleine Coraboeuf, was a French actress, journalist and a spy for the Germany Secret Service between 1940 and 1943.

Biography

Early life Born in 1905, the daughter of the painter in Pouille-les-Coteaux, Fontanges lost her mother at age seven. By the age of 19 she was married, only to divorce two years later. After the separation, she moved to Paris and took the surname Fontanges, the name of a former Louis XIV mistress.

By 1926 she became a known figure in Parisian society, frequenting political and diplomatic circles. She was considered by the press "a beautiful French actress". In 1935, she became a journalist. As a news correspondent in Rome during 1936, she met and befriended Benito Mussolini.

In 1937 Fontanges was found guilty of shooting Count Charles de Chambrun, then the French Ambassador to Rome, at the Gare du Nord on March 17. Reports explain that M. de Chambrun was wounded as he alighted a train in a revenge attack; Fontanges accused him of ruining her "love affair" with Mussolini.

In 1947 Fontanges, at 37 years of age, she was brought to face a military tribunal in Bordeaux on a charge of "intelligence with the enemy" Fontanges was quoted as saying upon the conclusion of the trial:

My only regret is that I wasn't hanged with the Duce instead of his last mistress, Clara Petacci.

In 1960, Fontanges was found dead in her Geneva apartment from a suspected sleeping pill overdose.