Pierre Paul Cambon was born on January 20, 1843, in Paris, France, brother of French diplomat Jules-Martin Cambon (1845-1935).
He was a French diplomat. He graduated from the University of Paris in 1866 and was called to the Parisian bar. He joined the Interior Ministry in 1870 and became prefect of the Aube (1872), the Doubs (1876), and the North (1877). In 1882, he transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was appointed resident minister in Tunisia to implement the French protectorate. In 1886, he was appointed ambassador to Spain. From 1891 to 1898, he served as ambassador to Constantinople, where he tried to restore French influence in the Ottoman Empire while working against German interests. In 1898, he became ambassador in Great Britain, a post he held until 1920. Cambon played a major role in negotiating the 1904 Entente Cordiale with Lord Lansdowne, the British foreign secretary, thus beginning and then promoting the process by which Great Britain, France, and Russia became allies in World War I. He was also the French signatory to the Sykes-Picot Agreement. He received the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur and became a member of the French Academy of Sciences.
In 1874, he married Anna Victorine Heloise Guepratte (1851–1898). He died on May 29, 1924, in Paris, France.
Archie, John, and James junior were three of the eight children of James Cameron, a Scottish immigrant to Montreal. A tavern keeper and grocer in Montreal from 1842-1859, James Cameron owned the Glasgow Inn tavern on Saint-Laurent Boulevard (see John Fraser, Canadian Pen and Ink Sketches [Montreal, 1890], p. 130). He is listed in the 1842 Lower Canada Census as having eight children. His sons include James junior, John, and Archie. John Cameron resided in Toronto between the 1850s and 1870s. Archie Cameron lived in Toronto during the 1850s, working in factories. He married Lucy, with whom he had four children.
