De Baroncelli studied Law and Humanities, emerging with a degree from the prestigious Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po). During the 1940s he had several novels published including the wartime novel "Vingt-six hommes" (1942 - "Twenty-six men"), and "Le disgracié" (1946) He married the theatre star Sophie Desmarets in October 1950 and the couple moved into an old farm that he had inherited on the northwestern side of Montpellier where for several years during the summers they followed a celebrity life-style, with frequent parties. However, unseasonal frost in 1956 ruined the wine harvest that year and much of the farmland had to be sold. Further land sales followed, and most of the 300 hectares had been sold and developed for housing by the later 1960s. Meanwhile, the couple's daughter was born in 1952.
