As patriarch of a family business dynasty that dates back to the days of Louis XIV, Baron Ernest-Antoine Seillière de Laborde knows a thing or two about survival. The Wendel family, which pioneered iron making in the lush valleys of Lorraine in the 1700s, fled France during the revolution of 1789 only to return a generation later and rebuild the business into a European leader in iron and, eventually, steel. Two centuries later in the 1980s, Seillière showed tremendous agility when, after the government nationalized the steel business — the foundation of industry giant ArcelorMittal — he used the family ...