Robert de La Rochefoucauld belonged to one of the oldest families of the French nobility, whose members included François de La Rochefoucauld, the author of a classic 17th-century book of maxims. For 30 years he was the mayor of Ouzouer-sur-Trézée, an idyllic canal town in the Loire Valley, and he used the aristocratic title of count.

But he is best remembered as a courageous and celebrated saboteur who fought for the honor of France in World War II as a secret agent with the British.

His exploits were legend, involving an eclectic and decidedly resourceful collection of tools in the service of sabotage and escape, including loaves of bread, a stolen limousine, the leg of a table, a bicycle and a nun’s habit, not to mention the more established accouterments of espionage like parachutes, explosives and a submarine.

And perhaps befitting a man whose wartime adventures were accomplished out of the public eye, the news of his death, on May 8, in Ouzouer-sur-Trézée, emerged slowly, first announced by his family in the French newspaper Le Figaro and then reported late in June in the British press. He was 88.