They married in March 1956. The union lasted 63 years and was, by her own account, a long lesson in endurance. Jacques Chirac was famous for his warmth, appetite and instinctive connection with crowds. Bernadette’s gifts were different, observers said. She was controlled, socially formidable, devout, exacting and sometimes devastatingly funny. The Catholic philosopher Jean Guitton called her the last queen of France, and she did little to discourage the idea.
Her husband’s reputation as a womanizer was an open secret she chose, after much pain, to meet with dry humor. Sent to tend her husband’s rural stronghold in Corrèze while he pursued power in Paris, she did far more than tend it. In 1971, she was elected municipal councilor in Sarran. In 1979, she became a general councilor in Corrèze and held the seat until 2015.
