- His father, Lazare Kessel, actor at the "Comédie-Française", killed himself at the time of Maurice's birth. He learned this when he was eighteen, having been told before that his father had died from the Spanish flu.
- His mother married René Druon from whom he took the name in 1925.
- He was cultural minister in France in 1973-1974.
- He wrote many novels, plays, and essays.
- He and his uncle, Joseph Kessel, adapted a Russian song which became known as the "Chant des Partisans" ("Song of the Partisans"), an anthem of the French Resistance during WWII.
- He was elected to the Academie Francaise in 1966, its youngest member at the time.
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