An astute French critic once described the author of Les Miserables, famous for his self esteem, as "a lunatic who thinks he's Victor Hugo."
That would be an apt way to describe the general, "a lunatic who thinks he's Charles De Gaulle."
Fenby's biography is very insightful.
De Gaulle dreamed he was a masculine Joan of Arc, a savior of France.
1940 created circumstances in which a man thus deluded could, by dint of unshakable conviction, become the man he dreamt he was.
Reading The General.
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