text: Claudel was in Rome (1915–1916), ministre plénipotentiaire in Rio de Janeiro (1917–1918), Copenhagen (1920), ambassador in Tokyo (1921–1927), Washington, D.C. (1928–1933, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in 1933) and Brussels (1933–1936). While he served in Brazil during World War I he supervised the continued provision of food supplies from South America to France. His secretaries during the Brazil mission included Darius Milhaud,  who wrote incidental music to a number of Claudel's plays.
  Later life
  In 1935 Claudel retired to Brangues in Dauphiné, where he had bought the château in 1927. He still spent winters in Paris.
  During World War II Claudel made his way to Algeria in 1940, after the Battle of France, and offered to serve Free France. Not having a response to the offer, he returned to Brangues. He supported the Vichy regime, but disagreed with Cardinal Alfred Baudrillart's policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany.
  Close to home, Paul-Louis Weiller, married to Claudel's daughter-in-law's sister, was arrested by the Vichy government in October 1940. Claudel went to Vichy to intercede for him, to no avail; Weiller escaped (with Claudel's assistance, the authorities suspected) and fled to New York. Claudel wrote in December 1941 to Isaïe Schwartz, expressing his opposition to the Statut des Juifs enacted by the regime. The Vichy authorities responded by having Claudel's house searched and keeping him under observation.
  Claudel was elected to the Académie française on 4 April 1946, replacing Louis Gillet. It followed a rejection in 1935, considered somewhat scandalous, when Claude Farrère was preferred. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in six different years.