Prince Phetsarath Ratanavongsa was the first and last Viceroy of the Kingdom of Laos. He was a Lao nationalist and political figure, and is considered by many to have been the founder of Lao independence. Prince Phetsarath was the eldest surviving son of Prince Boun Khong, Viceroy of the Kingdom of Luang Prabang (the first-born son, Chittarath, died before reaching adulthood). He was elder brother to Prince Souvanna Phouma and elder half-brother to Prince Souphanouvong. Prince Phetsarath studied at the Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat in Saigon, then in 1905 he traveled to France and continued his education, first at the Lycée Montaigne and ultimately at the École Coloniale, in Paris. He returned to Laos in 1912, married Princess Nhin Kham Venne in 1913, and joined the civil service of the Kingdom of Luang Prabang, which was at that time a French protectorate. By 1919 he had become head of the indigenous branch of the civil service, and for the next two decades he worked to unify Laos by creating a bureaucracy that would transcend the principalities and provinces into which the country had become divided. In 1941 the French ceded additional provinces (including Vientiane) to the Kingdom of Luang Prabang and granted executive powers to a Lao cabinet in which Viceroy Phetsarath served as premier. Soon after this, the Japanese occupied the country. When the Japanese surrendered at the end of World War II, Phetsarath sought to prevent the return of the French and proclaimed the unification of Laos as a single, independent kingdom. When he formed the Lao Issara (Free Lao) government in Vientiane, King Sisavang Vong dismissed him from office. As the French retook control of Laos, Phetsarath fled in April 1946 to Thailand, where he led the Lao Issara government-in-exile. Laos was proclaimed a self-governing state within the French Union in 1949, and was granted full independence at the Geneva Conference in September 1954. Prince Phetsarath returned to Laos in 1957. He wrote two books (both published in Thailand) and served as a respected elder statesman, actively advising the political leadership of the kingdom until his death in 1959. The autobiography of Prince Phetsarath Ratanavongsa was published posthumously, in 1978 (Iron Man of Laos: Prince Phetsarath Ratanavongsa).