GAULLE Charles de. GAULLE Charles de. A moving notebook of citations that accompanied the General from the end of the war to the end of his life. This hand-written collection highlights the General's influences and interests in the second half of his life, when he became the "First of the French". In 1946, Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of the provisional government, seeing that the party system was once again in turmoil in France and that it would be difficult for him to impose his political vision of a strong executive. The first quotations thus adopt a bitter tone that applies well to the circumstances: "The multitude likes plurality in government. Wise men like unity" (Joseph Joubert). (Joseph Joubert) or "Power that degrades does not obtain mercy from its enemies." (Chateaubriand). A little further on: "Politicians of impotence, / Radio broadcasters of sleep, / Penographers of decadence, / or "Les baladins de la politique. The politics of the guitar." "Socialist: Party of cowardly relief. Moderates: Contests to buy. Betrayals for sale. Radicals: Places! Places! ("Places" in the plural, naturally!) Popular Republican Movement: Altar boys who drank the cruets." We also find a number of considerations linked to the passage of time, as in 1953: "I am sixty-three years old. From now on, everything about me is organised around my death", or "Instant, stop, you are so beautiful" (Goethe's Faust), and finally, in 1967, as if to reassure himself: "At 89, Sophocles wrote Œdipe à Colone. / At 80, Goethe wrote his Great Faust / At 97, Titian painted The Descent from the Cross / At 85, Verdi composed his grandiose Te Deum / Monet, Kant, Voltaire, Chateaubriand, Hugo, Tolstoï, Shaw, Mauriac, etc.., At the age of 90, Doge Dandolo laid siege to Constantinople and took it. / These are examples we cite to ourselves to give ourselves the impression that we are old! From the point of view of influences, Chateaubriand is clearly over-represented: "It's not enough to be born, for a great man, you have to die", "Politics makes loners, like religion makes anchorites", "Leading the French to reality through dreams. Or again: "Forget everything, despise everything and die"... Charles Péguy also wrote: "Today is not tomorrow". of yesterday. On the contrary, it is the eve of tomorrow"; Barrès: "What is this call to nothingness? Lamartine: "Napoleon's reign was nothing more than a harsh discipline imposed on a nation"; Renan, Vauvenargues, Buffon, Rivarol, Baudelaire, Pascal, Saint-Augustin, but also, less expectedly, Agatha Christie: "There are only two kinds of people who don't give a damn about what people will say: vagabonds and great lords. "Or Gide: "There is no work of art without demonic participation", to which de Gaulle adds: "This is also true of action. The considerations are essentially historical or political, intermingled with a certain romantic contemplation of lost civilisations: he takes his cue from Chateaubriand: "Rome is still the great spoils of the universe"; "Byron calls Rome the Niobe of nations, 'deprived of her children and her crowns'"; Gobineau called the Mediterranean "the great matchmaker"; "Forests precede civilisations. Deserts follow them", as Chateaubriand always said. LNC, III, p. 1173 to 1187