Odile de Vasselot de Régné was born on Jan. 6, 1922, in Saumur, the seat of the French cavalry school, in the Loire Valley, to Gaston de Vasselot de Régné and Chantal de Cugnac.
She grew up largely in Metz, studying with the nuns of the Sacred Heart. Her father was stationed there before the war, as was Colonel de Gaulle, who headed the 507th Régiment de Chars, or Mobilized Unit. She recalled playing with de Gaulle’s son, Philippe, as a child.
She received her baccalaureate degree in 1939 and, after the war, a degree in history from the Sorbonne. In 1947, she joined the religious congregation of the Sisters of Saint Francis Xavier. In 1959, the congregation sent her to Abidjan, in Ivory Coast, to start a girls’ school in cooperation with the progressive government of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the country’s first president.
The school opened in 1962, and Ms. de Vasselot remained its director until 1988, when she returned to France. The Ivorian newspaper Fraternité Matin wrote recently that “under the enlightened direction of Mme. de Vasselot, this establishment, far more than a school, became the key institution that forged the female elite of this country.”
No immediate family survives Ms. de Vasselot. Her funeral mass was held on Tuesday at the Cathedral of Saint-Louis-des-Invalides in Paris, an honor reserved for France’s war heroes.
In November, as Mr. Macron was decorating her with the National Order of Merit at the Élysée Palace, she responded with bracing words: “What I want to say to young people is, ‘Never give up, never give up, whatever difficulties you face.’”
