De Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle is presented as the leader who gives the narrator’s refusal to despair a historical focus. After repeated defeats have made faith in France’s military leadership seem increasingly untenable, the narrator recognizes in de Gaulle the figure he has been waiting for and commits himself to reaching England to continue the fight. In this account, de Gaulle matters both as a wartime leader and as the answer to a long, distinctly personal need to believe that resistance remains possible.

Identity and Introduction

Before de Gaulle appears as the narrator’s chosen leader, the memoir describes a succession of generals and political figures in whom the narrator misplaced his hopes. Each defeat prompts him to transfer his belief to another supposed man of destiny. He remembers these successive acts of faith not as clear-eyed assessments but as expressions of an enduring incapacity for despair, which he connects to his mother’s talent for believing in and telling triumphant stories. De Gaulle is the person on whom that habit finally settles.

The narrator’s introduction of him is therefore charged by contrast. He has watched his previous champions fail or disappear from the scene; now, amid disaster, he sees a leader whose stature seems to match the crisis. He is especially moved by de Gaulle’s name, which the narrator feels to be rooted in France and its ancestors. The memoir does not offer a biography or a broad account of de Gaulle’s career. Instead, it presents him through the effect he has on a young French airman who has been waiting for a credible embodiment of resistance.

The Call to Continue the Fight

The narrator identifies de Gaulle’s broadcast from London on June 18, 1940, as an appeal for French people to continue fighting. Its timing becomes clearer against the events at Meknès: the narrator and his companions arrive just after the North African authorities have accepted the armistice, and orders have been issued grounding aircraft after some crews attempt to reach Gibraltar. The broadcast thus represents a direct challenge to the expectation that the armistice has ended the struggle.

The memoir places de Gaulle’s public appeal beside an earlier, private and comic counterpart. The narrator’s mother had already urged resistance at the Buffa Market on June 15 or 16, calling on those present to reject the armistice and continue the war. She imagined her son as an already famous writer and diplomat dealing blows to the enemy. The comparison does not diminish de Gaulle’s importance: it shows how the mother’s fervent vision anticipates the cause he will publicly lead, while also exposing the gap between her idealized image of her son and his actual circumstances.

The Narrator’s Decision to Follow

The narrator says that he immediately decided to follow de Gaulle to England with three friends. Their intended aircraft, a Den-55, was an unfamiliar new type that none of the four had piloted before. The decision is presented as a practical commitment made in uncertainty, not as the result of a personal meeting with de Gaulle. The leader’s appeal supplies the direction; the narrator and his companions must still find their own way to act on it.

At Meknès, the narrator’s mother presses him to take matters into his own hands, while he tries to remain patient and conceal his hesitation. Her agitation makes his choice feel at once political and intimate: he is answering the call to fight, but also carrying the resistance his mother has been demanding. Later, a sergeant who has arranged for another airman to say goodbye to his wife gives the narrator the same chance to leave for England under de Gaulle. The narrator accepts. The scene shows that the departure is not simply an abstract allegiance; it entails separation from family and a deliberate choice to leave as the armistice takes hold.

Narrative Role and Significance

De Gaulle’s importance in the memoir is shaped by retrospective recognition. The narrator recalls that his faith had moved from one leader to another, and describes his relief when it finally rested on someone who seemed equal to the moment. De Gaulle becomes the point at which the narrator’s habitual optimism finds a concrete political cause. His remembered posture of attention and salute reinforces the image of a disciplined leader, set against a military world in which defeat has made established authority appear exhausted.

The narrative also distinguishes de Gaulle’s public call from the narrator’s personal reasons for following it. The broadcast urges continued resistance; the narrator’s decision puts that appeal into motion through an attempt to reach England. His later account of wanting to arrive in good health to present himself to the leader conveys the seriousness he attaches to joining the cause. De Gaulle is thus less a fully depicted private character than the figure who turns a young man’s inherited, sometimes self-mocking refusal of despair toward action.