Armand Grenet

Armand Grenet was a winger who played rugby football for France at the 1920 Antwerpen Olympics, winning a silver medal. He played for Olympique in 1920-21. One problem with the 1920 Olympics is that French rugby does not recognize them as a full international and they don’t collect the stats on the event, so for many years Grenet was unknown, even his full name. Technically the 1920 French team was a “French XV” rather than “France.” However, details of his name have recently been found by French rugby historians at http://finalesrugby.fr/personnes/grenet-armand.

In World War I Grenet served as a lieutenant in the 115th Infantry Regiment and the 29th Battalion of Foot Hunters, and received the Croix de Guerre in April 1916 for rescuing several men despite his own injuries. He was decorated with the Legion d’Honneur on 30 June 1921 in a ceremony at Les Invalides.

Grenet studied at business school, obtaining assistance from executives at the Banque de France, for whom he worked. In September 1921 he was asked to carry out end-of-month checks on rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs in Paris, after which his superiors noticed 400 missing banknotes, and found that Grenet had vanished with 400,000 francs.

Surprising considering his past service, Grenet was found to have been addicted to cocaine, which had caused him to be removed from the Olympique Club earlier in 1921. He was eventually found in a hotel in Bruxelles, hiding under the name Armand Thierry, and was arrested on 6 December 1921.

Only 15,000 francs were still in possession although he led inspectors to the site in the Versailles Park where he had buried much of the money pots. Belgium extradited Grenet to France and he was eventually sentenced to one year in prison for the robbery. In December 1922 Armand Grenet married Marguerite Marie Henrietter Faudot. He eventually became a sales representative and lived until 1972.