It is hard to imagine, knowing the stature and reserve of the man, hearing General Charles de Gaulle humming a song while shaving. Or recite a poem by Albert Samain while making a success (a patience game).
Philippe de Gaulle, the only son of the former French president, recounts these intimate anecdotes with a mixture of restraint and affection in this small collection of 160 pages delivered as a will, a few months before his death at age 102. Another short chapter entitled “Family Modesty” looks at familiarity and formality within the family.
Interesting, certainly, such details remain rare throughout the pages. You are a de Gaulle or you are not. The son, who is not his first work on his illustrious father, prefers to present his opinions, sometimes very conservative, or to set the record straight on certain aspects of his father’s life.
No, he says for example, his parents did not spend their wedding night at the Lutetia hotel in Paris. No, de Gaulle did not, as some claim, forget that the air force had to support tanks in his directives dating from the start of the Second World War. And doubtful is the assertion of a cardiologist having attributed the discovery of the aneurysm which would kill the general on the evening of November 9, 1970.
If there is an event where he “didn’t see anything coming,” it was May 68. There, de Gaulle was “surprised by history” instead of predicting it, says his son.
The author devotes a chapter to Admiral Émile Henry Muselier, who led the rallying of the islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon to Free France on the night of December 24, 1941. This event had embarrassed the Canadian government because the raid had started from Halifax and Canada still had ties to the Vichy regime. However, Philippe de Gaulle here refers to the “Montreal government” instead of the Ottawa government.
In short, there are many instructive or at least entertaining passages in this collection. While others remain on the surface. In addition, the reader will not find a link from one chapter to another. We go from rooster to donkey. We jump back in time. The whole thing is nice, but uneven. Anecdotal, but with beautiful surges of tenderness.
Although it is not a striking work, these Last Memories will be read as if we were leafing through a family album with dog-eared photos while the author whispers to us comments in elegant French without being bombastic.