Philippe de Gaulle devoted his life to managing a legacy. The thoughts, the feats of arms and the legacy of his father, Charles de Gaulle, have occupied his daily life for fifty-three years since the General’s death on November 9, 1970. More than half a century since the admiral ascended guarding the top of his long silhouette, from Memoirs to political meetings, from official ceremonies to television broadcasts. The image of the great man follows him into the mirror, where every morning a thin mustache appears under a cliff nose – that of his father.
The passing years could have given Philippe de Gaulle a little respite, but there is always something to accomplish, even at 101 years old.
One morning in the winter of 2022, bent over his walker, the heir leaves his room at the Invalides military hospital, where he resides, to go to the Museum of the Order of the Liberation, a few corridors away. A room is dedicated to Charles de Gaulle. He left most of the objects there: the canteen taken by the General when he left London on June 17, 1940; his khaki uniform as leader of Free France, with jacket, pants and kepi; the necklace of Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order offered by the Queen of England, Elizabeth II, in 1960, to the man who was then President of the Republic.
Philippe de Gaulle now wants to entrust his father’s military decorations. “A deposit with no duration of time”, specifies the centenary to the national delegate of the Order of the Liberation, General Christian Baptiste.
His time is limited, he knows it. Everyone around him has already left. His wife, Henriette, has been waiting for him since 2014 under a tombstone in the Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises cemetery (Haute-Marne). Gray, sober, like the one that houses, on the other side of the aisle, Charles de Gaulle and his wife, Yvonne, as well as Philippe’s sister, Anne, carrier of Down syndrome, who died at 20, in 1948. Her other sister, Elisabeth, was buried to the right of her parents, in 2013, with her husband, the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor and hero of Free France Alain de Boissieu.
The most famous surname in France
Who will take up the torch of inheritance when Philippe joins them? On the political level, the question does not arise: there is always someone responsible to claim responsibility. “most illustrious of the French”, in the words of René Coty, the General’s predecessor at the Elysée. The anniversary of his disappearance is the pretext, each year, for a parade of personalities in Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, even if no prominent figure is expected to travel this year.
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