Standing on a platform alongside the 13th century cathedral of Bourges, the towering, droop-shouldered figure called out the single word, "Algeria!" Then he paused and peered down at the hundreds gathered in the square before him. The crowd had come to cheer Charles de Gaulle's progress on his automobile pilgrimage to Orléans to celebrate the 530th anniversary of the liberation of that city from the English by Joan of Arc.*
Not only the medieval backdrop gave the scene a curiously old-fashioned air. A scrupulous republican, Charles de Gaulle nonetheless seeks to recall a past regal grandeur (last week his photograph,...
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