None had quite the same self-awareness and sense of mission, epitomized in the way he spoke of himself in the third person. “When de Gaulle the man looks at de Gaulle the historic figure, he understands that the historic de Gaulle has to act as is expected of him.” His fate was to be France’s republican monarch, answering to a call far higher than everyday politics and acting on a plane of his own. When asked if he agreed to a proposal, he replied: “I do not agree, I decide yes or no.”
I have a providential mission to fulfill. I think nothing will happen to me. If it does, I will have been mistaken.
For de Gaulle, life was a constant struggle, and he thought his compatriots all too prone to opt for an easy existence or compromise, leading him to brand them as “veaux” — literally calves but best rendered into English as “sheep.”
His identification with France was so intense that, in his mind, the “historic” de Gaulle and the country he saw himself “carrying on my shoulders” became one. As President, he spoke of a murmur rising around him to urge the country on, for all the world like the supernatural voices that drove Joan of Arc.
For Richard Nixon, an acute admirer, he was the builder of a cathedral — France — and saw his nation as “a sort of middle kingdom for which the rest of the world had meaning only if it affected France.”
This identification went hand in hand with his deep belief that the nation state, not ideology or alliances, was the bedrock on which everything rested — he described himself as a “theologian” in the matter. Sovereign independence was all; treaties were like young girls and roses; they “last for as long as they last.”
He referred to himself as the only revolutionary in France and deplored the way in which his compatriots called for progress but hoped that nothing would really change.
A strict disciplinarian, he was one of the great rebels of his time. Demanding completely loyalty from those around him, he gave little in return. A statesman should not have friends because he would favor them and overlook their weaknesses, he told one of his ministers in the 1960s.
A grand visionary, de Gaulle was also a master of improvisation, a courting danger and springing surprises, making a fetish of secrecy. He saw himself as a high-stakes poker player while mainstream French politicians contended themselves with the cafe card game of belote. He took a visceral delight in defeating opponents, telling aides during one referendum campaign: “I’ll get them. I’ll stick it up their asses.” If, as Bill Clinton claimed, all great political contests are head games, Charles de Gaulle was a consummate player. He defined a statesman as “a man capable of taking risks.” “Nobody else would have the nerve to do what I have done.”
He was comfortable with power, deploying it with a natural assurance — as a young man he was nicknamed “the Constable” in reference to the senior official who ran the kingdom for the medieval monarch. He would later be compared to Louis XIV, to Bonaparte and to Stalin. During their 10 hours of tete-a-tete talks only two months before the General stepped down in 1969, Nixon found him completely at home in the grandeur of the Grand Trianon Palace at Versailles from where, as de Gaulle noted, the Sun King had ruled Europe. “He did not try to put on airs but an aura of majesty seemed to envelop him,” the US President wrote. “His performance — and I do not use that word disparagingly — was breathtaking. At times eloquent, at other times coldly pragmatic but at all times articulate… he was not always right, but he was always certain.”
In public, de Gaulle followed his own advice that leaders should show “cold dignity.” His whole life, he remarked, consisted of making people do what they did not want to do. His tragedy, he noted, was that “I respect only those who stand up to me, but I find such people intolerable.” Some detected a deep sadness in him; Churchill found a “great capacity for feeling pain.” He harbored intense personal emotions, particularly in his love for his second daughter who suffered from Down’s syndrome; without her, he said, “perhaps I should not have done all that I have done.” While he struck many as a man who “spoke not of doubts but of certainties,” he could still be prey to internal debate about how to proceed — he was just rather good at covering this up. At regular intervals, however, he declared that his mission was done for and reached out for reassurance from trusted followers, bouncing back when they urged him to persevere, as he had known they would.
His interests were omnivorous, ranging from nuclear strategy to the breeding habits of snails; “he wants to understand everything,” one of his closest aides remarked. He was proud but not vain, ready to press his case to the limits but usually know just when to stop. Deeply attached to military values — he called the army the nation’s “backbone” — he applied the tactics of the battlefield to politics, but despised most generals and faced military revolts.
The Premier, who had opposed the appeasement of Germany before the war, insisted in speeches and radio addresses that France would continue to resist the Nazi advance; but his words rang increasingly hollow, and he was under personal pressure from his mistress who urged him to seek an armistice.
Great men, he had decided early on, were those ready to grab the opportunity offered by events. June 1940 was to be that moment for de Gaulle.