De Gaulle

The General, Jonathan Fenby.

Explaining his refusal to take cover when German shells were falling around him in 1944, he told an official: 'I have a providential mission to fulfill. I think nothing will happen to me. If it does, I will have been mistaken.'

Even GW thought as much.

Nothing quite like a conviction of divine election to elevate your self-esteem to the height of the job.

For France, De Gaulle was a fortunate lunatic.

When we consider Stalin and Mao and so many others, we see how fortunate.

He was a madman who made much of the world share his delusion that even after 1940 France was a great power.

And he made many of those who were not in the least fooled play along, or at least tolerate his play-acting.