An Occasion for Gratitude

Charles de Gaulle began his Memoires de Guerre with a typical flourish: Toute ma vie, je me suis fait une certaine idée de la France. He had une certaine idée of himself, as well: in his imagination, de Gaulle and France were one and the same. Both had a manifest destiny to be magnificent: Bref, à mon sens, la France ne peut être la France sans la grandeur.