House of Poligny

This Norman family takes its name from the village of Kairon in the Mont Saint Michel region, where it originated (12th or 13th century).

The Cairons were identified as bourgeois glove-makers in the town of Bayeux from the end of the 17th century with Joseph Cairon and his son of the same name, as well as his descendants Jean Baptiste and Alexandre.

 

The latter, Alexandre Charles Cairon (1763-1814), wanted to join the ‘Royal Navy’ (the French military navy) and settled his family in Brest.

This decision had a remarkable and lasting impact on his descendants, who gave France several naval officers, including 2 admirals, in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Alexandre therefore turned to another career and was confirmed as a sailor. He sailed the seas of the world, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

Returning from an expedition, his three-masted ship appeared off the coast of Cherbourg, but a huge storm broke up the vessel, dragging him down into the abyss forever. He was only 40 years old.

Gabriel Cairon (1796-1841), his son, scalded by the dramatic death of his father, preferred to stay ashore, but still in the service of the Royal Navy (Maintenance Master in the port of Brest), as did his son Auguste Charles Louis Cairon (1836-1874), a naval writer.

The latter died of lung disease at the age of 38.

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Ernest Cairon (1867 - 1927) gave a new impetus to his upward social mobility.

Fatherless at the age of 7 and motherless at 15, this brilliant pupil of the Lycée de Brest entered and passed the Naval Medical School.

He took part in the colonial campaigns of Cochinchina (1889), Tonkin (1891) and Madagascar (1898). 

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In 1898, he married Elisabeth Senné des Jardins, daughter of the Commissaire en Chef de la Marine Anselme Senné des Jardins, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.

The Senné des Jardins family, lords of Angles sur Anglin (near Poitiers), descended directly from the House of Vienne in the 16th century.

At the time, Ernest Cairon was a 2nd class doctor on the aviso ‘l'Elan’. 

He became a father for the first time at the age of 36, then at 38, 40, 43 and 49; ‘one leave, one child’.

He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour (by decree of 29/5/1905).

He was principal physician in 1911, major physician of the Duguay-Trouin, a school ship in 1917, chief physician 2nd class during the 1st World War, chief physician for 2 years at the ‘Tribondeau’ hospital in Corfu (formerly the Achileion, owned by the German Emperor) in 1919, chief physician 1st class, Director of the Health Service in Lorient in May 1926 and promoted to general physician and Director of the Health Service in Brest with the rank of Admiral in the same year 1926.

He is the author of ‘Considérations sur quelques traumatismes de la région latérale du crâne’ - Paris, 1889, in-4° ( Paris. Th. méd. 1888-1889.N°230)

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Of his 5 children: 2 boys, Armand and André died young.

One daughter, Louise, married the Director of the Suez Canal and had only one son, Yvan Noël, Admiral, (godfather of Hervé Reumont de Poligny) without issue, one son, Georges Cairon, Commander of the Merchant Navy, (godfather of Jean - Loïc Reumont de Poligny), without issue and Edith Cairon.

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Edith Cairon (1906 - 1976) was a daring woman who exuded grace and presence.

She made her mark in the Parisian artistic and fashion worlds.

In the pre-war years, she exercised her taste for the theatre during public performances of Shakespeare's ‘Lady Macbeth’.

She married her mother's 14th cousin, the elegant François Xavier Reumont de Poligny, a tennis champion.

World War 2 turned her life upside down and led her to settle in Paris alone with her son Jean Loïc Reumont de Poligny.

She was a committed Gaullist from the outset.

Perfectly bilingual, after the Liberation she became director of the ‘Cercle Les Alliées’, a women's club, and then director of the ‘Club Féminin de Paris’ from 1946 to 1948.

Her courage, intelligence and the network she had patiently built up prompted the Haute Couture house ‘Madeleine de Rauch’ to recruit her as Director the following year.

She was poached in 1956 to run the Haute Couture house ‘Maria Carine’, which she did until 1968.

She donated many exceptional women's dresses and ensembles, which can still be seen at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.