“I did what I could”: when Geneviève de Fontenay confided in her son’s suicide

Last collaborator of Geneviève de Fontenay, Hubert Guérin leaves The last secrets of the lady in the hat. A book in which he evokes the suicide of one of the sons of the lady with the hat: Ludovic.

Geneviève de Fontenay led a life in the spotlight. Emblematic director of the Miss France committee, the one that the general public fondly nicknamed the lady with the hat took her last breath in August 2023. Mother of two sons, Xavier and Ludovic, Geneviève de Fontenay was marked by a family drama. His son, Ludovic, less known to the public, committed suicide. During his adolescence, he showed “worrying signs of depression“, reports Hubert Guérin, in his book The last secrets of the lady in the hat, published on June 25. Despite his charactersweet, deep, endearing“, Ludovic killed himself in March 1984. He was going to celebrate his 30th birthday, as reported by our colleagues at Gala. Geneviève de Fontenay was aware of her suicidal thoughts. But as she had confided to Hubert Guérin, her collaborator, she could not prevent her son from committing the irreparable: “I did what I could but he was sick“.

A drama that left a lasting mark on her

This suicide will leave an indelible wound to Geneviève de Fontenay: “It was the drama of her life. When she spoke about Ludovic, it was really short and very quickly her eyes filled with tears.. She didn’t say that he was manic-depressive or schizophrenic, but that he had the illness of the angels. She had kept this somewhat idealized image of this son who left too soon. But she spoke very little about it, because when she was really hurt, she didn’t speak. Or she spoke about it, but she ended with a joke. She was very modest.“, explained Hubert Guérin in the columns of Gala.

Geneviève de Fontenay particularly regretted not having given her son, Ludovic, the means to flourish, relates her collaborator: “I think she had a lot of regrets for Ludovic, whom she did not raise in good material conditions. Xavier always reproached her for not having offered Ludovic the material conditions for his development.“A tragedy that will have marked her until the end of her life.