Francis Walder (originally Waldburger) was born in Brussels in 1906. He trained at the Royal Military Academy there, and in WWII was a prisoner of war in Germany for five years. After the war he represented the Belgian Army in diplomatic negotiations. While an officer, he wrote a few philosophical texts, but it was in retirement that he published historical novels, beginning with Saint-Germain, ou la Négociation (Prix Goncourt 1958) and later Une Lettre de Voiture (1962) and Chaillot ou la Coexistence (1967). He died in Paris in 1997.
