eminent and wealthy Catholic family which was part of the Belgian conservative establishment. His brother, Jean Pierlot, would later become a member of the Belgian Resistance during the war and died in a German concentration camp in 1944. Hubert Pierlot was educated in religious schools in Maredsous and later attended the prestigious Jesuit Collège Saint-Michel secondary school in Brussels. He studied at the Catholic University of Louvain where he received a licence in Political Science and a doctorate in Law. During his early life, he travelled to the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. He later married Marie-Louise ( De Kinder) and had seven children. With the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914, he volunteered for the Belgian infantry as a private. He served at the Battle of the Yser and on the Yser Front where he was decorated for valour. By the end of the war, he had reached the rank of Lieutenant and was serving in the 20th Regiment of the Line. After the war, Pierlot joined the Catholic Party (Parti catholique), the main centre-right party in Belgium and one of the three that dominated Belgian political life. The Catholic Party, which was considered the party of stability and the establishment, was extremely electorally successful during the interwar period and headed a series of coalition governments. On 23 December 1925, Pierlot entered parliament as a member of the Chamber of Deputies representing Neufchâteau-Virton but left just a week later to become a senator. He served as provincial senator for Luxembourg from 1926 to 1936 and as directly elected senator for the same province between 1936 and 1946. He received a reputation for his oratorical abilities and for personal sincerity during the late 1920s. In the successive Catholic government of the interwar period, he served as the minister of Internal Affairs (1934–35), minister of Agriculture (1934–35; 1936–39), and minister of Foreign Affairs (1939). He first led a coalition of Catholics and Socialists, and then one of Catholics and Liberals. As Prime Minister During the interwar period, Belgium pursued a policy of political neutrality and attempted to avoid confrontation with Nazi Germany. When the Phoney War broke out, Pierlot became the leader of a tripartite national government of Catholics, Liberals and Socialists which stayed in power until the German invasion in May 1940. Break with Leopold III During the fighting in May 1940, the Pierlot government came into