A statesman died in Rene's house (7)
I believe the answer is:
madison
'a statesman' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I can't understand how one could define the other.
'died in rene's house' is the wordplay.
'died' becomes 'd' (abbreviation next to the year of someone's death).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'rene's house' becomes 'maison' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'd' going into 'maison' is 'MADISON'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for madison that I've seen before include "NY avenue associated with the advertising industry" , "James, fourth US president" , "US president - New York square with gardens" , "James -, fourth president of the USA" , "dance?" .)