France would be a fine thing

Creator of cars and keen collector of squares, Louis Renault (1877 - 1944) is widely regarded as one of the most French people in the history of France and indeed the world.

For starters, he was born with finesse in Paris to his laissez-faire, debonair parents as they strolled along the Left bank discussing portentiously the works of the dead poet Vincent Voiture (1597 - 1648, famous poems include Hibou hibou ou est tu, mon hibou? and Raisin raisin je t'aime mais tu n'est pas humain.) It was clear then that to be a truly insane writer or a maker of small cars was little Louis Renault's inevitable destiny.

Loius Renault took to Gallic life like a duck to water, or a Frenchman's dinner plate. His first word was "galette", a sort of generic term for pastry based cake, his second was "Guy Forget" (two words technically, but irrelevant as no-one had any idea what or who he was talking about) and his third was "brmm brrmm". His parents were struck with worry, thinking this might be a sign that the otherwise advanced and preternaturally gifted baby might be a little bit Belgian.

All concerns were allayed when the young Louis Renault was garnered with a baby brother, reassuringly called Marcel, who in a classic French surrealist twist, turned out to be several years older than Louis. Yes, Marcel was 20 before Louis was in his teens but this didn't stop either of them developing a strong fraternal bond and an unshakeable passion for Brie.

For a bet Louis wore a beret for the whole of 1899. He slept in it and went swimming in it and even played tennis in it.

His brother lost the bet and had to ride his bike sidesaddle for the rest of this life.

Uncomfortable and humiliated (sometimes mistaken for a eunuch) Marcel was spurred on to make engines. Louis had a natural flair for wheels (experimenting briefly with square ones) and together they constructed engines with wheels. In the spring of 1905 their father gave them some doors for Christmas and they attached them to the engine.

They collected tokens from a cereal box (Louis pining after croissants) and sent off for the rest of the parts needed to make a car. By the end of the year, the Renault brothers were ready to launch their first automobile. It was a huge success and nearly took off but for the lack of wings, an addition which they left for their American friends Wilbur and Orville Wright to make.

A few years later, Marcel died in a car accident and Louis decided to drive to the funeral. The whole of France deemed this a highly insensitive thing to do and threw olives at Louis' house for a week.

Louis survived the attack but could never look at an olive again without thinking of his brother Marcel and singing the Marseillaise backwards on one leg.

Louis continued to make cars and people bought them and if they didn't have any money, Louis, being a hip and modern sort of chap, would accept the equivalent in high-fives. By the 1940s Louis was bankrupt and had very sore palms. When the Nazis invaded Paris at about teatime, Louis was too tired to wave and the Nazis thought this was rude. Louis thought that invading was rude in the first place and when the Nazis asked Louis to build them some tanks so they could rampage all over the French, Louis promptly said non and blew a raspberry.

The Nazis took control of Louis' car making factory but Louis refused to reveal his secret recipe, instead telling the Nazis he put mayonnaise in his cars to make them go. This trick was instrumental in the downfall of the Nazis, slowing them down and making them smell really bad and turning Louis Renault into a national war hero.