Hélène de Portes

Hélène de Portes is portrayed in Jean Marboeuf's 1993 film Pétain by Frédérique Tirmont. She was also the basis of the fictionalized character "Baronne de Porte" in Dennis Wheatley's novel, The Black Baroness. In the 2020 biopic of Charles De Gaulle, aptly named De Gaulle, she is played by French actress Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu.

Hélène de Portes, born Hélène Rebuffel, (1902 – 28 June 1940), was a Frenchwoman best remembered for the strong influence she exerted on her lover Paul Reynaud, premier of France under the Third Republic, shortly before and at the time France's June 1940 debacle at the hands of Nazi Germany. A Fascist sympathizer, she was described as '..a middle aged woman, with a shrill voice, and a clamorous, demanding manner, who chatted like a magpie and lost her temper with ease.' Charles de Gaulle called her 'a turkey', while Winston Churchill nicknamed her 'the parrot'.

As the power of Nazi Germany grew, Reynaud was identified by many French voters and deputies as a strong voice of resistance to Germany. He became Minister of Finance in 1938 and on 21 March 1940, after the German occupation of Poland, became Prime Minister of France. As such, he led a government whose status depended on its alliance with the United Kingdom. However, while the French alliance with England was strategic policy from the standpoint of the fight against Hitler, the alliance was obnoxious to the Countess, who has been described as "so violently anti-British that Hitler had once sent an emissary to woo her favours."

After the catastrophic Battle of Sedan, the French forces and the government were forced to fall back from Paris. On 10–13 June 1940, Reynaud tried to re-establish his government at Tours. To reorganize the forces, he opened intensive negotiations on 12 June with General Charles de Gaulle, but Hélène de Portes personally intervened in their discussion and threw a temper tantrum, in their presence, at the prospect of what she considered to be futile further warfare. De Portes had a particular antipathy towards Winston Churchill and, according to his bodyguard Walter Thompson, actually lunged at Churchill's throat with a knife she had concealed within her Christian Dior dress.

As Reynaud rose in the 1930s through the upper ranks of his party, the Democratic Republican Alliance, de Portes' status moved upwards with him. She was described by insiders as la porte à côté, the side door through which interested persons could gain access to the state of mind of the highest echelon of the French government.

Hélène de Portes was born Hélène Rebuffel in 1902, the daughter of Charles Rebuffel, an engineer and director of Société des Grands Travaux de Marseille from 1917 to 1939. She married Count Henri de Portes, but they separated after she had given him two children. She became Paul Reynaud's mistress in 1930, the year Reynaud entered the cabinet.