claude andré charles antoine marie hettier de boislambert was born at hérouvillette (calvados) just outside caen into an upper-middle-class family with long roots in this part of normandy. he successfully passed his school final exams ("baccalauréat") in 1922. he studied law and went on to study political sciences at the prestigious institut d'études politiques in paris. after that, according to one source, he worked as a journalist. other sources focus on what might be interpreted as a more self-indulgent life-style. by the time he graduated he had inherited sufficient wealth to lead a quasi-aristocratic existence, involving much sport and extensive foreign travel in central africa where it is reported that he carried out "ethnographic research", in scandinavia, in central europe and in the middle-east. his favourite sport was hunting ("la chasse"). he was also a landowner, and by 1939 was running a well managed farm-estate at sainte-marie-du-mont (between caen and cherbourg).