March 20, 2015

In April Charles de Gaulle, now President of France, returned to Britain for the first time since the war. His first visit was to the home of Sir Winston Churchill. Churchill and de Gaulle had had a love-hate relationship since de Gaulle had landed on Britain’s shores in 1940. Their mutual pugnacious temperaments and the national interests of their countries caused considerable acrimony. Churchill’s famous statement about the Cross of Lorraine being the greatest cross he had to bear during the war was balanced by de Gaulle’s reference to him as “le monstre de Downing Street.”

Wartime rivalries and antipathies were now put aside Sir Winston greeted his guest in French, “Vous estes le bienvenue chez moi. Jusqu’a la fin de ma vie vous serez le bienvenu.” (You are welcome. Until the end of my days you will be welcome in my home.)

De Gaulle was accorded the honor of addressing both Houses of Parliament. As the bandsmen broke into the “Marseillaise,” the eyes of the General and Sir Winston met and both welled up with tears. But the tears changed to laughter when de Gaulle exclaimed: “If it came about in those days of June 1944 that I found myself by no means always in agreement with my illustrious friend, on particular points, it is perhaps because success, henceforth assured, led us into some degree of intransigence . . . But see how time undertakes to bring out in relief what matters and to wipe out what counts for little.”

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