René Mathis

Bond's French secret service friend from Casino Royale.

René Mathis is a French secret service agent and long-time friend of James Bond, a main character in Casino Royale who also appears in From Russia, with Love and later novels and films.

Quick Facts

In service: SDECE

Facts from the source article.

Background

An agent of the SDECE, Mathis first met Bond on assignment in Monte Carlo before the Second World War, when Bond was cracking down on Romanians cheating a casino with invisible ink. Reassigned to him for Casino Royale, he poses as a radio salesman and introduces Bond to Vesper Lynd; he captures the SMERSH villain Rosa Klebb and keeps the poisoned Bond alive with cardiopulmonary resuscitation until a doctor arrives. In Thunderball, Bill Tanner has Moneypenny send him a copy of SPECTRE's ransom letter, and in Never Dream of Dying Le Gérant, head of the Union, captures and blinds him with lasers before Bond saves him; a younger Mathis appears in the Young Bond story "A Hard Man to Kill".

The 1954 Climax! television Casino Royale merged him with Vesper into Valerie Mathis, played by Linda Christian. Duncan Macrae played him as a police officer in the 1967 Casino Royale, where his Scots accent puzzles Evelyn Tremble.

In the 2006 Casino Royale, played by Giancarlo Giannini, he is suspected of being an informant for Le Chiffre and arrested; even after Vesper proves to be the real traitor, Bond advises MI6 to keep interrogating him. In Quantum of Solace he has retired to an Italian villa given by MI6 as compensation, joins Bond against Dominic Greene, and is killed by corrupt policemen in Greene's pay, asking Bond with his dying words to forgive Vesper.