CHARLES DE GAULLE'S lifelong romance with France seemed finally ended. And it was Marianne herself who broke off the affair. De Gaulle always knew that he was dealing with a woman both fickle and domineering. "The emotional side of me," he once wrote, "tends to imagine France, like the princess in the stories or the Madonna in the frescoes, as dedicated to an exalted and exceptional destiny."
France responded to this romantic view of herself in moments of national crisis; then it was comforting to have so impassioned a lover as De Gaulle ready...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
