Did anyone comment on the recent death of an emblematic Frenchman of the 20th century? I refer to Max Theret, who departed this life at the end of February aged 96.

Not exactly a household name, maybe, but when I say he was the man who set up the FNAC maybe you begin to grasp his significance. When I add that he was once Trotsky's bodyguard, you are further intrigued. And when I further note that at the age of 80 he was convicted of insider-dealing in a murky Mitterrandish political scandal, you get a full sense of his symbolic interest: from the revolutionary far-left to easeful plutocracy in the space of a lifetime.

Now is not the place to quibble over rights and wrongs. Let us just celebrate an extraordinary story. Born in 1913, Theret excelled at sports and in the late 20s was providing muscle at left-wing demos. A member of the Socialist SFIO, he got to know some of the Trotskyite "entryists" and in 1934 was hired to be one of the great leader's minders at his villa in Barbizon southwest of Paris. "For us he was the Pope," Theret later said.

Max Theret spent much of the 30s fighting in Spain, and in World War II had a job at the Paris telephone exchange where he spied for the Resistance. He was a keen photographer -- obits said he had a passion for what was known euphemistically as "photos de charme" -- and in 1951 he set up a first agency aimed at bringing together buyers and traders in cameras. He offered a regular market for the traders, and ensured handsome discounts for the buyers.

Four years later the principle was expanded at the new Federation nationale d'achat des cadres (FNAC), which he set up with another Trotskyist Andre Essel. The aim was left-wing in spirit. If the goal of Socialist movements was to raise the salaries of workers, they reasoned, then one action that could have the same ultimate effect would be to bring down the price of traded goods. And that was what FNAC did -- negotiating hefty discounts from the big producers of cameras, record-players, records, books and so on, and offering them in return an ever-growing clientele.

Nowadays FNAC belongs to the global conglomerate PPR, but the founding egalitarian inspiration has still not entirely disappeared. (Critics might say it is evident in the surly manner of too many of the staff).

In any case, Theret became very rich. He sold his stake in FNAC in 1977 and was for many years a generous funder of Mitterrand's Socialists. But ignominy awaited. In 1988 he bought a load of shares in a French packaging company just before its takeover by Pechiney. He made a mint, but was immediately accused of insider-trading. Worse, there were signs he had the cooperation of one of Mitterrand's close advisers. It ended in 1993 with a suspended prison term and a large fine.

Asked for his reaction, he said it was "chiant" but he'd known worse -- a reference to the two bullets in his leg he got while fighting in Spain.

A rich life, then, if one also reeking of the hypocrisies of his age.