Daniel Bouyjou was born on 10 August 1920 in
Bordeaux. His father, René Bouyjou, worked in the family coffee business, which flourished across
Europe. In 1919, René married Jeanne Gauthier, although the couple divorced in 1925. Jeanne remarried in 1927 to Charles Cordier. When Daniel joined the
French Resistance in
London, he listed his official last name as "Bouyjou-Cordier". With René dying in 1943, he would officially take the name "Cordier" in 1945. Throughout his youth, Daniel's father retained custody. He attended various Catholic schools, such as the École Saint-Elme d'Arcachon. Influenced by royalism and
Maurrassisme by his stepfather, Cordier joined
Action Française at the age of 17 and founded the Cercle Charles-Maurras in Bordeaux. Cordier admired
Charles Maurras and was anti-Semitic, anti-socialist, anti-communist, anti-democratic, and ultranationalist during this period. Even during his time with Free France, he hoped for judgment against the socialist politician
Léon Blum. However, patriotism for France outlasted his early ideals and he joined the
Free French Forces. In June 1940, while with his family in
Bescat, Cordier listened on the radio as
Philippe Pétain announced the
French surrender to Germany and the armistice. Outraged, he distributed a pamphlet against Pétain. He, along with 16 others, embarked on a Belgian ship headed to
Algeria. However, the ship landed in
England. He reached
Falmouth on 25 June and joined his fellow Frenchmen three days later. He was assigned to the to undergo training. Following his training, he was given the rank of Lieutenant. Entering the
Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action, Cordier parachuted into
Montluçon on 26 July 1942. He quickly reached
Lyon and began under the service of Jean Moulin of the
French National Committee. He took the pseudonym Alain and began work as Moulin's secretary. He managed mail and radio links to London and created various organs of the Resistance. In Lyon, he managed to recruit
Laure Diebold, Hugues Limonti, Suzanne Olivier, Joseph Van Dievort, Georges Archimbaud, Laurent Girard, Louis Rapp, and Hélène Vernay. In Paris, he brought Jean-Louis Théobald, Claire Chevrillon, and Jacqueline Pery d'Alincourt to the Resistance. In Lyon, he would eventually be replaced by Tony de Graaff. Cordier's work led to the foundation of the
National Council of the Resistance on 27 May 1943. To create this council, many compromises had to be made between Moulin and
Pierre Brossolette, a colleague of Charles de Gaulle. After Moulin's death, Brossolette called for Cordier's return to London. However, he stayed with Moulin's successor, Claude Bouchinet-Serreulles until 21 March 1944. He crossed the
Pyrenees and entered
Pamplona, where he was briefly interned at the Miranda concentration camp. He then joined British forces. Historian Jacques Baynac suggested in his book
Présumé Jean Moulin that Cordier had been arrested by
Nazi Germany around 14 June 1943, a claim denied by Cordier. As he would later tell in his autobiography,
Alias Caracella, Cordier abandoned his royalist beliefs, partly because he felt betrayed by his idol, Charles Maurras, who supported
Vichy France. He also grew uncomfortable with his anti-Semitic beliefs. After the end of
World War II, Cordier stopped discussing the Resistance for more than thirty years. He dedicated himself to political activism, having given up his far-right beliefs after becoming acquainted with the radical socialist Jean Moulin. He followed
humanist and non-Marxist
socialist beliefs. He founded the Club Jean-Moulin in the 1960s. During the
2017 French presidential election, he was outspoken against
Marine Le Pen, describing her potential election as "monstrous". Cordier had a profound career as an art dealer. He spoke highly of Jean Moulin in the preface to his donation to the
Centre Pompidou. In 1946, he began studying at the
Académie de la Grande Chaumière. At that time, he bought his first work, a painting by Jean Dewasne. His discovery of the works of
Nicolas de Staël was "his revelation of modern art". Other artists he collected included
Georges Braque,
Chaïm Soutine,
Hans Hartung,
Jacques Villon,
Dado,
Arman,
Antoni Tàpies,
Georges Mathieu,
Friedensreich Hundertwasser,
Gaston Chaissac, and others. In November 1956, he began exhibiting his artworks, which would show the start of a long and successful career in art dealing. In May 1957, he organized the first personal exhibition of Bernard Réquichot, whom he had met in 1950. Cordier became very active in the cause for gay rights, he wrote in his autobiography
Alias Caracalla : mémoires, 1940-1943. In it, he revealed his homosexuality, which he had kept a secret due to the fact that "the hatred towards homosexuality was terrible". In 2013, he announced his support for gay marriage. His diary,
Les Feux de Saint-Elme, was published in 2014 while the second volume of his autobiography was in production, though that would never be published. He wrote of his sexual awakening while attending an all-boys boarding school in
Arcachon. He was a friend of
Roland Barthes, as well as a tutor for
Hervé Vilard and inspired him to pursue a singing career. In 2020, during the commemoration of the
Appeal of 18 June,
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson honoured the last four Companions of the Liberation: Cordier, together with
Edgard Tupët-Thomé,
Pierre Simonet, and
Hubert Germain. The four men were named to the
Order of the British Empire by
Ambassador of the United Kingdom to France Ed Llewellyn. He received the award at his home in
Cannes on 7 July 2020. ==Death==