He gave a "despairing laugh" when de Gaulle suggested fighting on. It was thought that half a million men could be evacuated to French North Africa , provided the British and French navies and air forces coordinated their efforts. In his memoirs de Gaulle mentioned his support for the proposal to continue the war from French North Africa, but at the time he was more in favour of the plan to form a " redoubt " in Brittany than he later admitted. Italy entered the war on 10 June. That day de Gaulle was present at two meetings with Weygand he only mentions one in his memoirs , one at the defence committee and a second where Weygand barged into Reynaud's office and demanded an armistice.
When Weygand asked de Gaulle, who wanted to carry on fighting, if he had "anything to suggest", de Gaulle replied that it was the government's job to give orders, not to make suggestions. De Gaulle wanted Paris to be stubbornly defended by de Lattre , but instead it was declared an open city. De Gaulle's fighting spirit made a strong impression on the British. He then returned to attend a cabinet meeting, at which it was clear that there was a growing movement for an armistice, and which decided that the government should move to Bordeaux rather than de Gaulle's preference for Quimper in Brittany.
This time few other major French figures were present apart from Reynaud and Baudoin. He was an hour late, and his account is not reliable. Reynaud demanded that France be released from the agreement which he had made with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in March , so that France could seek an armistice. De Gaulle wrote that Churchill was sympathetic to France seeking an armistice, provided that an agreement was reached about what was to happen to the French fleet. This claim was later made by apologists for the Vichy Regime, e. However, is not supported by other eyewitnesses Churchill himself, Roland de Margerie , Spears who agree that Churchill said that he "understood" the French action but that he did not agree with it.
De Gaulle was dissuaded from resigning by the Interior Minister Georges Mandel , who argued that the war was only just beginning, and that de Gaulle needed to keep his reputation unsullied. De Gaulle arrived at Bordeaux on 14 June, and was given a new mission to go to London to discuss the potential evacuation to North Africa. He had a brief meeting with Admiral Darlan about the potential role of the French Navy.
Next morning no aircraft could be found so he had to drive to Brittany, where he visited his wife and daughters, and his aged mother whom he never saw again, as she died in July , before taking a boat to Plymouth he asked the skipper if he would be willing to carry on the war under British flag , where he arrived on 16 June. He ordered the boat Pasteur , with a cargo of munitions, to be diverted to a British port, which caused some members of the French Government to call for him to be put on trial.
He telephoned Reynaud — they were cut off during the conversation and had to resume later — with the news that the British had agreed. De Gaulle was now in imminent danger of arrest. Reynaud still had control of secret government funds until the handover of power the next day. It has been suggested that he ordered de Gaulle to go to London, but no written evidence has ever been found to confirm this.
Georges Mandel also refused to come. The escape was hair-raising, with Spears' aide having to run to the hangar at the last minute to fetch a rope to tie on the luggage. Jean Laurent brought , gold francs in secret funds provided to him by Reynaud. De Gaulle landed at Heston Airport soon after He saw Churchill at around Duff Cooper Minister of Information had an advance copy of the text of the address, to which there were no objections. The cabinet eventually agreed after individual lobbying, as indicated by a handwritten amendment to the cabinet minutes.
De Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June exhorted the French people not to be demoralized and to continue to resist the occupation of France. He also — apparently on his own initiative — declared that he would broadcast again the next day. Few listened to it, although it was published in some newspapers in metropolitan mainland France.
The speech was largely aimed at French soldiers who were then in Britain after being evacuated from Norway and Dunkirk ; most showed no interest in fighting for de Gaulle's Free French Forces and were repatriated back to France to become German prisoners of war. In his next broadcast on 19 June de Gaulle denied the legitimacy of the government at Bordeaux.
The British Foreign Office protested to Churchill. De Gaulle also tried, largely in vain, to attract the support of French forces in the French Empire. After the armistice was signed on 21 June , de Gaulle spoke at Jean Monnet broke with de Gaulle on 23 June, as he thought his appeal was "too personal" and went too far, and that French opinion would not rally to a man who was seen to be operating from British soil.
De Gaulle broadcast again on 24 June. The armistice took effect from He claimed erroneously that the French fleet was to be handed over to the Germans. De Gaulle had little success in attracting the support of major figures. Roland de Margerie stayed in France despite his opposition to the armistice. At this time de Gaulle's followers consisted of a secretary of limited competence, three colonels, a dozen captains, a famous law professor Cassin , and three battalions of legionnaires who had agreed to stay in Britain and fight for him.
For a time the New Hebrides were the only French colony to back de Gaulle. He considered withdrawing to Canada to live as a private citizen and waited five days before broadcasting. Spears called on de Gaulle on 5 July and found him "astonishingly objective" and acknowledging that it was the right thing from the British point of view. Spears reported to Churchill that de Gaulle had shown "a splendid dignity".
In his broadcast of 8 July he spoke of the "pain and anger" caused by the attack and that it was a "hateful tragedy not a glorious battle", but that one day the enemy would have used the ships against England or the French Empire, and that the defeat of England would mean "bondage forever" for France.
They will either go down both together or both together they will win". On Bastille Day 14 July de Gaulle led a group of between and sailors to lay a wreath at the statue of Ferdinand Foch at Grosvenor Gardens. His family had left Brittany the other ship which left at the same time was sunk and lived for a time at Petts Wood. As his daughter Anne was terrified by the Blitz they moved to Ellesmere in Shropshire, a four-hour journey from London and where de Gaulle was only able to visit them once a month. His wife and daughter also lived for a time in the country at Rodinghead House, Little Gaddesden , in Hertfordshire, 45 kilometres 28 miles from central London.
A separate letter guaranteed the territorial integrity of the French Empire. General Georges Catroux , Governor of French Indo-China which was increasingly coming under Japan's thumb , disapproved of the armistice and congratulated de Gaulle, whom he had known for many years. He was sacked by Vichy and arrived in London on 31 August; de Gaulle had gone to Dakar, but they met in Chad four weeks later. He was the most senior military figure to defect to the Free French. On average he spoke on BBC radio three times a month. This was the dawn of the Vichy regime.
De Gaulle's subsequent speeches reached many parts of the territories under the Vichy regime, helping to rally the French resistance movement and earning him much popularity amongst the French people and soldiers. De Gaulle began by making frequent use of "I" and "me" in his war-time speeches, but over time, their use declined.
However, claims that de Gaulle was surrounded by Cagoulards , Royalists and other right-wing extremists are untrue.
Charles de Gaulle
Many leading figures of the Free French and the Resistance, e. A newspaper France was also soon set up. De Gaulle organised the Free French Forces and the Allies gave increasing support and recognition to de Gaulle's efforts. It was an all-encompassing coalition of resistance forces, ranging from conservative Catholics like himself to communists.
By early , the "Fighting French" movement, as it was now called, gained rapidly in power and influence; it overcame Vichy in Syria and Lebanon, adding to its base. Dealing with the French communists was a delicate issue, for they were under Moscow's control and the USSR was friendly with Germany in —41 as a result of the Molotov—Ribbentrop Pact. De Gaulle's policy then became one of friendship directly with Moscow, but Stalin showed little interest. It is the only Western allied formation to have fought until the end of the war in the East.
In his dealings with the British and Americans both referred to as the "Anglo-Saxons", in de Gaulle's parlance , he always insisted on retaining full freedom of action on behalf of France and was constantly on the verge of losing the Allies' support. Some writers have sought to deny that there was deep and mutual antipathy between de Gaulle and British and American political leaders.
De Gaulle personally had ambivalent feelings about Britain, possibly in part because of childhood memories of the Fashoda Incident. Never did the Anglo-Saxons really treat us as real allies. They never consulted us, government to government, on any of their provisions. For political purpose or by convenience, they sought to use the French forces for their own goals, as if these forces belonged to them, alleging that they had provided weapons to them [ I deliberately adopted a stiffened and hardened attitude In addition, de Gaulle harboured a suspicion of the British in particular, believing that they were seeking to seize France's colonial possessions in the Levant.
Winston Churchill was often frustrated at what he perceived as de Gaulle's patriotic arrogance, but also wrote of his "immense admiration" for him during the early days of his British exile. Although their relationship later became strained, Churchill tried to explain the reasons for de Gaulle's behaviour in the second volume of his history of World War II:. He felt it was essential to his position before the French people that he should maintain a proud and haughty demeanour towards " perfidious Albion ", although in exile, dependent upon our protection and dwelling in our midst.
He had to be rude to the British to prove to French eyes that he was not a British puppet. He certainly carried out this policy with perseverance. De Gaulle described his adversarial relationship with Churchill in these words: Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time. De Gaulle said that the French people thought he was a reincarnation of Joan of Arc, to which Churchill replied that the English had had to burn the last one. After his initial support, Churchill, emboldened by American antipathy to the French general, urged his War Cabinet to remove de Gaulle as leader of the French resistance.
But the War Cabinet warned Churchill that a precipitate break with de Gaulle would have a disastrous effect on the whole resistance movement. By autumn , Churchill had to acknowledge that de Gaulle had won the struggle for leadership of Free France. De Gaulle's relations with Washington were even more strained. President Roosevelt for a long time refused to recognize de Gaulle as the representative of France, insisting on negotiations with the Vichy government. At the Casablanca Conference , Roosevelt forced de Gaulle to cooperate with Giraud, but de Gaulle was considered as the undisputed leader of the Resistance by the French people and Giraud was progressively deprived of his political and military roles.
British and Soviet allies were outraged that the US president unilaterally recognised the new government of a former enemy before de Gaulle's one and both recognised the French government in retaliation, forcing Roosevelt to recognise de Gaulle in late , [] but Roosevelt managed to exclude de Gaulle from the Yalta Conference. On take-off, the bomber's tail dropped, and the plane nearly crashed into the airfield's embankment.
Only the skill of the pilot, who became aware of sabotage on takeoff, saved them. On inspection, it was found that aeroplane's separator rod had been sabotaged, using acid. Publicly, blame for the incident was cast on German intelligence [] however behind closed doors de Gaulle blamed the Western Allies, and later told colleagues that he no longer had confidence in them. He became first joint head with the less resolutely independent General Henri Giraud , the candidate preferred by the US who wrongly suspected de Gaulle of being a British puppet and then—after squeezing out Giraud by force of personality—sole chairman of the French Committee of National Liberation.
As preparations for the liberation of Europe gathered pace, the US in particular found de Gaulle's tendency to view everything from the French perspective to be extremely tiresome. Roosevelt, who refused to recognize any provisional authority in France until elections had been held, referred to de Gaulle as "an apprentice dictator", a view backed by a number of leading Frenchmen in Washington, including Jean Monnet , who later became an instrumental figure in the setting up of the European Coal and Steel Community that led to the modern European Union.
Roosevelt directed Churchill to not provide de Gaulle with strategic details of the imminent invasion because he did not trust him to keep the information to himself. French codes were considered weak, posing a risk since the Free French refused to use British or American codes. Nevertheless, a few days before D-Day, Churchill, whose relationship with the General had deteriorated since he arrived in Britain, decided he needed to keep him informed of developments, and on 2 June he sent two passenger aircraft and his representative, Duff Cooper to Algiers to bring de Gaulle back to Britain.
De Gaulle refused because of Roosevelt's intention to install a provisional Allied military government in the former occupied territories pending elections, but he eventually relented and flew to Britain the next day. Upon his arrival at RAF Northolt on 4 June he received an official welcome, and a letter reading "My dear general! Welcome to these shores, very great military events are about to take place! De Gaulle became worried that the German withdrawal from France might lead to a breakdown of law and order in the country and even a possible communist takeover.
De Gaulle was very concerned that an American takeover of the French administration would just provoke a communist uprising. Churchill then lost his temper, saying that Britain would always be an ally to the United States, and that under the circumstances, if they had to choose between France and the US, Britain would always choose the latter.
De Gaulle replied that he realised this would always be the case. The next day, de Gaulle refused to address the French nation as the script again made no mention of his being the legitimate interim ruler of France. It instructed the French people to obey Allied military authorities until elections could be held, and so the row continued, with de Gaulle calling Churchill a "gangster". Churchill accused de Gaulle of treason in the height of battle, and demanded that he be flown back to Algiers "in chains if necessary".
De Gaulle and Churchill had a complex relationship during the wartime period. De Gaulle did show respect and admiration for Churchill, and even some light humorous interactions between the two have been noted by observers such as Duff Cooper, the British Ambassador to the French Committee of Liberation. In Casablanca in , Churchill supported de Gaulle as the embodiment of a French Army that was otherwise defeated, stating that "De Gaulle is the spirit of that Army.
Perhaps the last survivor of a warrior race. In the years to come, the sometimes hostile, sometimes friendly dependent wartime relationship of de Gaulle and his future political peers reenacted the historical national and colonial rivalry and lasting enmity between the French and the British, [] and foreshadowed the deep distrust of France for post-war Anglo-American partnerships.
De Gaulle ignored les Anglo-Saxons , and proclaimed the authority of Free France over the metropolitan territory the next day. Initially landing as part of Operation Dragoon , in the south of France, the French First Army helped to liberate almost one third of the country and participated in the invasion and occupation of Germany. As the invasion slowly progressed and the Germans were pushed back, de Gaulle made preparations to return to France. On 14 June , he left Britain for France for what was supposed to be a one-day trip.
Despite an agreement that he would take only two staff, he was accompanied by a large entourage with extensive luggage, and although many rural Normans remained mistrustful of him, he was warmly greeted by the inhabitants of the towns he visited, such as the badly damaged Isigny. Finally he arrived at the city of Bayeux , which he now proclaimed as the capital of Free France.
Appointing his Aide-de-Camp Francois Coulet as head of the civil administration, de Gaulle returned to the UK that same night on a French destroyer, and although the official position of the supreme military command remained unchanged, local Allied officers found it more practical to deal with the fledgling administration in Bayeux in everyday matters.
At the beginning of July he at last visited Roosevelt in Washington, where he received the gun salute of a senior military leader rather than the 21 guns of a visiting head of state. The visit was 'devoid of trust on both sides' according to the French representative, [2] however, Roosevelt did make some concessions towards recognising the legitimacy of the Bayeux administration.
Meanwhile, with the Germans retreating in the face of the Allied onslaught, harried all the way by the resistance, there were widespread instances of revenge attacks on those accused of collaboration. A number of prominent officials and members of the feared Milice were murdered, often by exceptionally brutal means, provoking the Germans into appalling reprisals, such as in the destruction of the village of Oradour-sur-Glane and the killing of its inhabitants.
Liberation of the French capital was not high on the Allies' list of priorities as it had comparatively little strategic value, but both de Gaulle and the commander of the French 2nd Armored Division, General Philippe Leclerc were still extremely concerned about a communist takeover. De Gaulle successfully lobbied for Paris to be made a priority for liberation on humanitarian grounds and obtained from Allied Supreme Commander General Dwight D.
Eisenhower an agreement that French troops would be allowed to enter the capital first. A few days later, General Leclerc's division entered the outskirts of the city, and after six days of fighting in which the resistance played a major part, the German garrison of men surrendered on 25 August, although some sporadic outbreaks of fighting continued for several days.
General Dietrich von Choltitz , the commander of the garrison, was instructed by Hitler to raze the city to the ground, however, he simply ignored the order and surrendered his forces. It was fortunate for de Gaulle that the Germans had forcibly removed members of the Vichy government and taken them to Germany a few days earlier on 20 August; it allowed him to enter Paris as a liberator in the midst of the general euphoria, [] but there were serious concerns that communist elements of the resistance, which had done so much to clear the way for the military, would try to seize the opportunity to proclaim their own 'Peoples' Government' in the capital.
De Gaulle made contact with Leclerc and demanded the presence of the 2nd Armoured Division to accompany him on a massed parade down the Champs Elysees , "as much for prestige as for security". In the event, the American General Omar Bradley decided that Leclerc's division would be indispensable for the maintenance of order and the liquidation of the last pockets of resistance in the French capital.
As his procession came along the Place de la Concorde on Saturday 26 August, it came under machine gun fire by Vichy militia and fifth columnists who were unable to give themselves up. Later, on entering the Notre Dame Cathedral to be received as head of the provisional government by the Committee of Liberation, loud shots broke out again, and Leclerc and Koenig tried to hustle him through the door, but de Gaulle shook off their hands and never faltered.
While the battle began outside, he walked slowly down the aisle. Before he had gone far a machine pistol fired down from above, at least two more joined in, and from below the FFI and police fired back. A BBC correspondent who was present reported;. He is being received General de Gaulle walked straight ahead into what appeared to me to be a hail of fire It was the most extraordinary example of courage I have ever seen Paris outraged, Paris broken, Paris martyred, but Paris liberated!
Liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the assistance of the armies of France, with the support and assistance of the whole of France! The enemy is faltering but he is not yet beaten. He is still on our soil. It will not suffice that we, with the assistance of our dear and admirable allies, will have chased him from our home in order to be satisfied after what has happened. We want to enter his territory, as is fitting, as conquerors. It is for this revenge, this vengeance and this justice, that we will continue to fight until the last day, until the day of the total and complete victory.
That evening, the Wehrmacht launched a massive aerial and artillery barrage of Paris in revenge, leaving several thousand dead or injured. This he did 'not without some satisfaction', [] and so, on 29 August, the US 28th Infantry Division was rerouted from its journey to the front line and paraded down the Champs Elysees. The same day, Washington and London agreed to accept the position of the Free French. The following day General Eisenhower gave his de facto blessing with a visit to the General in Paris.
Eisenhower, unlike Roosevelt, wanted to cooperate with de Gaulle, and he secured a last-minute promise from the President on the eve of D-Day that the Allied officers would not act as military governors and would instead cooperate with the local authorities as the Allied forces liberated French Territory. With the prewar parties and most of their leaders discredited, there was little opposition to de Gaulle and his associates forming an interim administration. In order not to be seen as presuming on his position in such austere times, de Gaulle did not use one of the grand official residences such as Hotel de Matignon or the presidential palace on the Elysee, but resided briefly in his old office at the War Ministry.
Living conditions immediately after the liberation were even worse than under German rule. Large-scale public demonstrations erupted all over France, protesting the apparent lack of action at improving the supply of food, while in Normandy, bakeries were pillaged. The problem was not French agriculture, which had largely continued operating without problems, but the near-total breakdown of the country's infrastructure. Large areas of track had been destroyed by bombing, most modern equipment, rolling stock, lorries and farm animals had been taken to Germany and all the bridges over the Seine , the Loire and the Rhone between Paris and the sea had been destroyed.
The black market pushed real prices to four times the level of , causing the government to print money to try to improve the money supply, which only added to inflation. On 10 November , Churchill flew to Paris to a reception by de Gaulle and the two together were greeted by thousands of cheering Parisians on the next day.
At an official luncheon de Gaulle said, "It is true that we would not have seen [the liberation] if our old and gallant ally England, and all the British dominions under precisely the impulsion and inspiration of those we are honouring today, had not deployed the extraordinary determination to win, and that magnificent courage which saved the freedom of the world. There is no French man or woman who is not touched to the depths of their hearts and souls by this.
After the celebrations had died down, de Gaulle began conferring with leading Resistance figures who, with the Germans gone, intended to continue as a political and military force, and asked to be given a government building to serve as their headquarters. The Resistance, in which the Communists were competing with other trends for leadership, had developed its own manifesto for social and political change known as the National Council of the Resistance CNR Charter, and wanted special status to enter the army under their own flags, ranks and honours.
Despite their decisive support in backing him against Giraud, de Gaulle disappointed some of the Resistance leaders by telling them that although their efforts and sacrifices had been recognised, they had no further role to play and, that unless they joined the regular army, they should lay down their arms and return to civilian life. Believing them to be a dangerous revolutionary force, de Gaulle moved to break up the liberation committees and other militias. The communists were not only extremely active, but they received a level of popular support that disturbed de Gaulle.
The president of the prewar Senate Jules Jeanneney was brought back as second-ranking member, but because of their links with Russia, de Gaulle allowed the Communists only two minor positions in his government. While they were now a major political force with over a million members, of the full cabinet of 22 men, only Augustin Laurent and Charles Tillon —who as head of Francs-Tireurs et Partisans had been one of the most active members of the resistance—were given ministries. However, de Gaulle did pardon the Communists' leader Maurice Thorez , who had been sentenced to death in absentia by the French government for desertion.
On his return home from Russia, Thorez delivered a speech supporting de Gaulle in which he said that for the present, the war against Germany was the only task that mattered. There were also a number of new faces in the government, including a literary academic, Georges Pompidou , who had written to one of de Gaulle's recruiting agents offering his services, and Jean Monnet, who in spite of his past opposition to the General now recognized the need for unity and served as Commissioner for Economic Planning.
Controversially, de Gaulle also appointed Maurice Papon as Commissioner for Aquitaine in spite of his involvement in the deportation of Jews while serving as a senior police official in the Vichy regime during the occupation. Over the years, Papon remained in high official positions but continued to be implicated in controversial events such as the Paris massacre of , [] eventually being convicted of crimes against humanity in In social policy, legislation was introduced [ by whom? De Gaulle's policy was to postpone elections as long as 2. In mid-September, he embarked upon a tour of major provincial cities to increase his public profile and to help cement his position.
Raymond Aubrac said that the General showed himself to be ill-at-ease at social functions; in Marseille and Lyon he became irate when he had to sit next to former Resistance leaders and also voiced his distaste for the rowdy, libidinous behavior of French youths during the Maquisard parades which preceded his speech.
During the tour, de Gaulle showed his customary lack of concern for his own safety by mixing with the crowds and thus making himself an easy target for an assassin. Although he was naturally shy, the good use of amplification and patriotic music enabled him to deliver his message that though all of France was fragmented and suffering, together they would rise again.
During every speech he would stop halfway through to invite the crowd to join him in singing La Marseillaise , before continuing and finishing by raising his hands in the air and crying "Vive la France! As the war entered the final stages, the nation was forced to confront the reality of how many of its people had behaved under German rule.
In France, collaborators were more severely punished than in most other occupied countries. Women who got this treatment were lucky as many others were simply attacked by lynch mobs. With so many of their former members having been hunted down and killed by the Nazis and paramilitary Milice, the Partisans had already summarily executed an estimated 4, people, [] and the Communists in particular continued to press for severe action against collaborators.
In Paris alone, over , people were at some time detained on suspicion of collaboration, although most were later released. Knowing that he would need to reprieve many of the 'economic collaborators'—such as police and civil servants who held minor roles under Vichy in order to keep the country running as normally as possible—he assumed, as head of state, the right to commute death sentences.
De Gaulle commuted of the 1, capital sentences submitted before him, including all those involving women.
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Many others were given jail terms or had their voting rights and other legal privileges taken away. It is generally agreed that the purges were conducted arbitrarily, with often absurdly severe or overly lenient punishments being handed down. Later, there was the question of what to do with the former Vichy leaders when they were finally returned to France. Three Vichy leaders were executed. Joseph Darnand , who became an SS officer and led the Milice paramilitaries who hunted down members of the Resistance, was executed in October Fernand de Brinon , the third-ranking Vichy official, was found guilty of war crimes and executed in April The two trials of the most infamous collaborator of all, Pierre Laval , who was heavily implicated in the murder of Jews, were widely criticised as being unfair for depriving him of the opportunity to properly defend himself, although Laval antagonized the court throughout with his bizarre behavior.
He was found guilty of treason in May and de Gaulle was adamant that there would be no commuting the death sentence, saying that Laval's execution was "an indispensable symbolic gesture required for reasons of state". There was a widespread belief, particularly in the years that followed, that de Gaulle was trying to appease both the Third Republic politicians and the former Vichy leaders who had made Laval their scapegoat.
The winter of —45 was especially difficult for most of the population. Inflation showed no sign of slowing down and food shortages were severe. The prime minister and the other Gaullists were forced to try to balance the desires of ordinary people and public servants for a return to normal life with pressure from Bidault's MRP and the Communists for the large scale nationalisation programme and other social changes that formed the main tenets of the CNR Charter.
At the end of the coal industry and other energy companies were nationalised, followed shortly afterwards by major banks and finance houses, the merchant navy, the main aircraft manufacturers, airlines and a number of major private enterprises such as the Renault car company at Boulogne-Billancourt , whose owner had been implicated as a collaborator and accused of having made huge profits working for the Nazis.
At de Gaulle's request, the newspaper Le Monde was founded in December to provide France with a quality daily journal similar to those in other countries. Le Monde took over the premises and facilities of the older Le Temps , whose independence and reputation had been badly compromised during the Vichy years.
During this period there were a number of minor disagreements between the French and the other Allies. The British ambassador to France Duff Cooper said that de Gaulle seemed to seek out real or imagined insults to take offence at whatever possible. In late October he complained that the Allies were failing to adequately arm and equip the new French army and instructed Bidault to use the French veto at the European Council.
On Armistice Day in , Winston Churchill made his first visit to France since the liberation and received a good reception in Paris where he laid a wreath to Georges Clemenceau. The occasion also marked the first official appearance of de Gaulle's wife Yvonne, but the visit was less friendly than it appeared. De Gaulle had instructed that there be no excessive displays of public affection towards Churchill and no official awards without his prior agreement.
When crowds cheered Churchill during a parade down the Elysee, de Gaulle was heard to remark, "Fools and cretins! Look at the rabble cheering the old bandit". With the Russian forces making more rapid advances into German-held territory than the Allies, there was a sudden public realisation that the Soviet Union was about to dominate large parts of eastern Europe. In fact, at the Cairo and Tehran Conferences in Britain and America had already agreed to allow Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to fall under the Soviet sphere of influence after the war, with shared influence in Yugoslavia.
De Gaulle and his Foreign Minister Bidault stated that they were not in favour of a 'Western Bloc' that would be separate from the rest of Europe, and hoped that a resurgent France might be able to act as a 'third force' in Europe to temper the ambitions of the two emerging superpowers, America and Soviet Union. In his memoirs, de Gaulle devoted 24 pages to his visit to the Soviet Union, but a number of writers make the point that his version of events differs significantly from that of the Soviets, of foreign news correspondents, and with their own eye-witness accounts.
De Gaulle wanted access to German coal in the Ruhr as reparations after the war, the left bank of the Rhine to be incorporated into French territory, and for the Oder-Neisse line in Poland to become Germany's official eastern border. De Gaulle began by requesting that France enter into a treaty with the Soviet Union on this basis, but Stalin, who remained in constant contact with Churchill throughout the visit, said that it would be impossible to make such an agreement without the consent of Britain and America. He suggested that it might be possible to add France's name to the existing Anglo-Soviet Agreement if they agreed to recognise the Soviet-backed provisional Polish government known as the Lublin Committee as rightful rulers of Poland, but de Gaulle refused on the grounds that this would be 'un-French', as it would mean it being a junior partner in an alliance.
Though the treaty which was eventually signed by Bidault and Molotov carried symbolic importance in that it enabled de Gaulle to demonstrate that he was recognised as the official head of state and show that France's voice was being heard abroad, it was of little relevance to Stalin due to France's lack of real political and military power; it did not affect the outcome of the post-war settlement.
Stalin later commented that like Churchill and Roosevelt, he found de Gaulle to be awkward and stubborn and believed that he was 'not a complicated person' by which he meant that he was an old-style nationalist. At the end of French forces continued to advance as part of the American armies, but during the Ardennes Offensive there was a dispute over Eisenhower's order to French troops to evacuate Strasbourg , which had just been liberated so as to straighten the defensive line against the German counterattack.
By early it was clear that the price controls which had been introduced to control inflation had only served to boost the black market and prices continued to move ever upwards. By this time the army had swelled to over 1. De Gaulle was never invited to the summit conferences of Allied leaders such as Yalta and Potsdam. He never forgave the Big Three leaders Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin for their neglect and continued to rage against it as having been a negative factor in European politics for the rest of his life.
After the Rhine crossings , the French First Army captured a large section of territory in southern Germany, but although this later allowed France to play a part in the signing of the German surrender, Roosevelt in particular refused to allow any discussion about de Gaulle participating in the Big Three conferences that would shape Europe in the post-war world.
Churchill pressed hard for France to be included 'at the inter-allied table', but on 6 December the American president wired both Stalin and Churchill to say that de Gaulle's presence would "merely introduce a complicating and undesirable factor". At the Yalta Conference in February , despite Stalin's opposition, Churchill and Roosevelt insisted that France be allowed a post-war occupation zone in Germany, and also made sure that it was included among the five nations that invited others to the conference to establish the United Nations. On his way back from Yalta, Roosevelt asked de Gaulle to meet him in Algiers for talks.
The General refused, believing that there was nothing more to be said, and for this he received a rebuke from Georges Bidault and from the French press, and a severely angered Roosevelt criticised de Gaulle to Congress. Soon after, on 12 April , Roosevelt died, and despite their uneasy relationship de Gaulle declared a week of mourning in France and forwarded an emotional and conciliatory letter to the new American president, Harry S.
Truman , in which he said of Roosevelt, "all of France loved him". De Gaulle's relationship with Truman was to prove just as difficult as it had been with Roosevelt. With Allied forces advancing deep into Germany, another serious situation developed between American and French forces in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe , when French soldiers were ordered to transfer the occupation zones to US troops. Wishing to retain as much German territory in French hands as possible, de Gaulle ordered his troops, who were using American weapons and ammunition, to resist, and an armed confrontation seemed imminent.
De Gaulle never forgave Truman and hinted he would work closely with Stalin, leading Truman to tell his staff, "I don't like the son of a bitch. The first visit by de Gaulle to Truman in the U. Truman told his visitor that it was time that the French got rid of the Communist influence from its government, to which de Gaulle replied that this was France's own business. In May the German armies surrendered to the Americans and British at Rheims, and a separate armistice was signed with France in Berlin. However, among the vehicles that took part was an ambulance from the Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit , staffed by French doctors and British nurses.
A number of French troops returned their medals in protest and Mary wrote, "it is a pitiful business when a great man suddenly becomes small. Another confrontation with the Americans broke out soon after the armistice when the French sent troops to occupy the French-speaking Italian border region of Val d'Aoste. The French commander threatened to open fire on American troops if they tried to stop them, and an irate Truman ordered the immediate end to all arms shipments to France. Truman sent de Gaulle an angry letter saying that he found it unbelievable that the French could threaten to attack American troops after they had done so much to liberate France.
A dispute with Britain over control of Syria and Lebanon quickly developed into an unpleasant diplomatic incident that demonstrated France's weaknesses. In May, de Gaulle sent General Beynet to establish an air base in Syria and a naval base in Lebanon, provoking an outbreak of nationalism in which some French nationals were attacked and killed. On 20 May, French artillery and warplanes fired on demonstrators in Damascus. After several days, upwards of Syrians lay dead.
Churchill's relationship with de Gaulle was now at rock bottom. In January he told a colleague that he believed that de Gaulle was "a great danger to peace and for Great Britain. After five years of experience, I am convinced that he is the worst enemy of France in her troubles I am sure that in the long run no understanding will be reached with General de Gaulle".
On 31 May, Churchill told de Gaulle "immediately to order French troops to cease fire and withdraw to their barracks". British forces moved in and forced the French to withdraw from the city; they were then escorted and confined to barracks. The secretary of the Arab League Edward Atiyah said, "France put all her cards and two rusty pistols on the table". That cannot be forgotten". At the Potsdam Conference in July, to which de Gaulle was not invited, a decision was made to divide Vietnam, which had been a French colony for over a hundred years, into British and Chinese spheres of influence.
However, the resistance leaders in Indo-China proclaimed the freedom and independence of Vietnam, and a civil war broke out that lasted until France was defeated in Since the liberation, the only parliament in France had been an enlarged version of the Algiers Consultative Assembly, and at last, in October , elections were held for a new Constituent Assembly whose main task was to provide a new constitution for the Fourth Republic.
De Gaulle favoured a strong executive for the nation, [17] but all three of the main parties wished to severely restrict the powers of the president. The Communists wanted an assembly with full constitutional powers and no time limit, whereas de Gaulle, the Socialists and the Popular Republican Movement MRP advocated one with a term limited to only seven months, after which the draft constitution would be submitted for another referendum.
In the election , the second option was approved by 13 million of the 21 million voters. On 13 November , the new assembly unanimously elected Charles de Gaulle head of the government, but problems immediately arose when it came to selecting the cabinet, due to his unwillingness once more to allow the Communists any important ministries. The Communists, now the largest party and with their charismatic leader Maurice Thorez back at the helm, were not prepared to accept this for a second time, and a furious row ensued, during which de Gaulle sent a letter of resignation to the speaker of the Assembly and declared that he was unwilling to trust a party that he considered to be an agent of a foreign power Russia with authority over the police and armed forces of France.
Eventually, the new cabinet was finalised on 21 November, with the Communists receiving five out of the twenty-two ministries, and although they still did not get any of the key portfolios. De Gaulle believed that the draft constitution placed too much power in the hands of parliament with its shifting party alliances. One of his ministers said he was "a man equally incapable of monopolizing power as of sharing it". De Gaulle outlined a programme of further nationalisations and a new economic plan which were passed, but a further row came when the Communists demanded a 20 percent reduction in the military budget.
Refusing to "rule by compromise", de Gaulle once more threatened to resign. There was a general feeling that he was trying to blackmail the assembly into complete subservience by threatening to withdraw his personal prestige which he insisted was what alone kept the ruling coalition together. Barely two months after forming the new government, de Gaulle abruptly resigned on 20 January The move was called "a bold and ultimately foolish political ploy", with de Gaulle hoping that as a war hero, he would be soon brought back as a more powerful executive by the French people.
With the war finally over, the initial period of crisis had passed. Although there were still shortages, particularly of bread, France was now on the road to recovery, and de Gaulle suddenly did not seem so indispensable. The Communist publication Combat wrote, "There was no cataclysm, and the empty plate didn't crack". After monopolizing French politics for six years, Charles de Gaulle suddenly dropped out of sight, and returned to his home to write his war memoirs. De Gaulle had told Pierre Bertaux in that he planned to retire because "France may still one day need an image that is pure If Joan of Arc had married, she would no longer have been Joan of Arc".
During this period of formal retirement, however, de Gaulle maintained regular contact with past political lieutenants from wartime and RPF days, including sympathizers involved in political developments in French Algeria, becoming "perhaps the best-informed man in France". Despite the new party's taking 40 percent of the vote in local elections and seats in , lacking its own press and access to television, its support ebbed away.
In May , he withdrew again from active politics, [17] though the RPF lingered until September As with all colonial powers France began to lose its overseas possessions amid the surge of nationalism.
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French Indochina now Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia , colonised by France during the midth century, had been lost to the Japanese after the defeat of De Gaulle had intended to hold on to France's Indochina colony, ordering the parachuting of French agents and arms into Indochina in late and early with orders to attack the Japanese as American troops hit the beaches. It was largely funded by the United States and grew increasingly unpopular, especially after the stunning defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Within a few years, the Algerian war of independence reached a summit in terms of savagery and bloodshed and threatened to spill into metropolitan France itself.
Between and the Fourth Republic had 24 separate ministries. Frustrated by the endless divisiveness, de Gaulle famously asked "How can you govern a country which has varieties of cheese? The Fourth Republic was wracked by political instability, failures in Indochina , and inability to resolve the Algerian question. On 13 May , the Pied-Noir settlers seized the government buildings in Algiers, attacking what they saw as French government weakness in the face of demands among the Arab majority for Algerian independence.
General Raoul Salan , Commander-in-Chief in Algeria, announced on radio that he was assuming provisional power, and appealed for confidence in himself. At a 19 May press conference, de Gaulle asserted again that he was at the disposal of the country. As a journalist expressed the concerns of some who feared that he would violate civil liberties, de Gaulle retorted vehemently: On the contrary, I have re-established them when they had disappeared.
Who honestly believes that, at age 67, I would start a career as a dictator? De Gaulle did not wish to repeat the difficulty the Free French movement experienced in establishing legitimacy as the rightful government. He told an aide that the rebel generals "will not find de Gaulle in their baggage". The crisis deepened as French paratroops from Algeria seized Corsica and a landing near Paris was discussed Operation Resurrection. I ask General de Gaulle to confer with the head of state and to examine with him what, in the framework of Republican legality, is necessary for the immediate formation of a government of national safety and what can be done, in a fairly short time, for a deep reform of our institutions.
Another condition was that he be granted extraordinary powers for a period of six months. De Gaulle remained intent on replacing the weak constitution of the Fourth Republic. He is sometimes described as the author of the new constitution , as he commissioned it and was responsible for its overall framework. On 1 June , de Gaulle became Prime Minister and was given emergency powers for six months by the National Assembly , [] fulfilling his desire for parliamentary legitimacy. On 28 September , a referendum took place and The colonies Algeria was officially a part of France, not a colony were given the choice between immediate independence and the new constitution.
All African colonies voted for the new constitution and the replacement of the French Union by the French Community , except Guinea , which thus became the first French African colony to gain independence and immediately lost all French assistance. De Gaulle oversaw tough economic measures to revitalise the country, including the issuing of a new franc worth old francs.
On 23 November , in a speech in Strasbourg , de Gaulle announced his vision for Europe:. His expression, "Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals", has often been cited throughout the history of European integration. It became, for the next ten years, a favourite political rallying cry of de Gaulle's. His vision stood in contrast to the Atlanticism of the United States and Britain, preferring instead a Europe that would act as a third pole between the United States and the Soviet Union.
As the last chief of government of the Fourth Republic, de Gaulle made sure that the Treaty of Rome creating the European Economic Community was fully implemented, and that the British project of Free Trade Area was rejected, to the extent that he was sometimes considered as a "Father of Europe" []. Upon becoming president, de Gaulle was faced with the urgent task of finding a way to bring to an end the bloody and divisive war in Algeria. He had immediately visited Algeria and declared, Je vous ai compris —'I have understood you', and each competing interest had wished to believe it was them that he had understood.
The settlers assumed he supported them, and would be stunned when he did not. In Paris, the left wanted independence for Algeria. Although the military's near-coup had contributed to his return to power, de Gaulle soon ordered all officers to quit the rebellious Committees of Public Safety. Such actions greatly angered the pieds-noirs and their military supporters. He faced uprisings in Algeria by the pied-noirs and the French armed forces. On assuming the prime minister role in June he immediately went to Algeria, and neutralised the army there, with its , soldiers.
The Algiers Committee of Public Safety was loud in its demands on behalf of the settlers, but de Gaulle made more visits and sidestepped them. For the long term he devised a plan to modernize Algeria's traditional economy, deescalated the war, and offered Algeria self-determination in A pied-noir revolt in failed, while another attempted coup failed in April French voters approved his course in a referendum on Algerian self-determination.
De Gaulle arranged a cease-fire in Algeria with the March Evian Accords , legitimated by another referendum a month later. It gave victory to the FLN, which came to power and declared independence. The long crisis was over. It also initially published only the first part of the novel "Fantine" , which was launched simultaneously in major cities. Installments of the book sold out within hours and had enormous impact on French society.
The critical establishment was generally hostile to the novel; Taine found it insincere, Barbey d'Aurevilly complained of its vulgarity, Gustave Flaubert found within it "neither truth nor greatness", the Goncourt brothers lambasted its artificiality, and Baudelaire — despite giving favourable reviews in newspapers — castigated it in private as "repulsive and inept". Today, the novel remains his most well-known work. It is popular worldwide and has been adapted for cinema, television, and stage shows. An apocryphal tale [9] about the shortest correspondence in history is said to have been between Hugo and his publisher Hurst and Blackett in He queried the reaction to the work by sending a single-character telegram to his publisher, asking?
The publisher replied with a single! Dedicated to the channel island of Guernsey , where he spent 15 years of exile, Hugo tells of a man who attempts to win the approval of his beloved's father by rescuing his ship, intentionally marooned by its captain who hopes to escape with a treasure of money it is transporting, through an exhausting battle of human engineering against the force of the sea and a battle against an almost mythical beast of the sea, a giant squid.
Superficially an adventure, one of Hugo's biographers calls it a "metaphor for the 19th century—technical progress, creative genius and hard work overcoming the immanent evil of the material world. The word used in Guernsey to refer to squid pieuvre , also sometimes applied to octopus was to enter the French language as a result of its use in the book. Hugo returned to political and social issues in his next novel, L'Homme Qui Rit The Man Who Laughs , which was published in and painted a critical picture of the aristocracy.
His last novel, Quatre-vingt-treize Ninety-Three , published in , dealt with a subject that Hugo had previously avoided: Though Hugo's popularity was on the decline at the time of its publication, many now consider Ninety-Three to be a work on par with Hugo's better-known novels. He was elevated to the peerage by King Louis-Philippe in and entered the Higher Chamber as a pair de France , where he spoke against the death penalty and social injustice , and in favour of freedom of the press and self-government for Poland.
In , he broke with the conservatives when he gave a noted speech calling for the end of misery and poverty. Other speeches called for universal suffrage and free education for all children. Hugo's advocacy to abolish the death penalty was renowned internationally. When Louis Napoleon Napoleon III seized complete power in , establishing an anti-parliamentary constitution, Hugo openly declared him a traitor to France. He relocated to Brussels , then Jersey , from which he was expelled for supporting a Jersey newspaper that had criticised Queen Victoria and finally settled with his family at Hauteville House in Saint Peter Port , Guernsey , where he would live in exile from October until The pamphlets were banned in France but nonetheless had a strong impact there.
Like most of his contemporaries, Victor Hugo held colonialist views towards Africans. In a speech delivered on 18 May , he declared that the Mediterranean Sea formed a natural divide between " ultimate civilisation and […] utter barbarism," adding "God offers Africa to Europe. Take it," in order to civilise its indigenous inhabitants.
This might partly explain why in spite of his deep interest and involvement in political matters he remained strangely silent on the Algerian issue. He knew about the atrocities committed by the French Army during the French conquest of Algeria as evidenced by his diary [14] but he never denounced them publicly. A modern reader may also feel puzzled, to say the least, at the meaning of these lines from the conclusion to Le Rhin, chapter 17, [15] published in , twelve years after French troops landed near Algiers.
What France lacks in Algiers is a little barbarity. The first thing that strikes savages is not reason but strength. What France lacks, England has it; Russia too. Algeria too harshly conquered, and, as in the case of India by the English, with more barbarism than civilization. Before being exiled he never denounced slavery, and no trace of its abolition is to be found in the 27 April entry of his detailed diary.
On the other hand, Victor Hugo fought a lifelong battle for the abolition of the death penalty as a novelist, diarist, and member of Parliament. The Last Day of a Condemned Man published in analyses the pangs of a man awaiting execution; several entries of Things Seen Choses vues , the diary he kept between and , convey his firm condemnation of what he regarded as a barbaric sentence; [17] on 15 September , seven months after the Revolution of , he delivered a speech before the Assembly and concluded, "You have overthrown the throne.
His complete archives published by Pauvert show also that he wrote a letter asking the United States government, for the sake of their own reputation in the future, to spare John Brown's life, but the letter arrived after Brown was executed. Although Napoleon III granted an amnesty to all political exiles in , Hugo declined, as it meant he would have to curtail his criticisms of the government. It was only after Napoleon III fell from power and the Third Republic was proclaimed that Hugo finally returned to his homeland in , where he was promptly elected to the National Assembly and the Senate.
He was in Paris during the siege by the Prussian Army in , famously eating animals given to him by the Paris Zoo. As the siege continued, and food became ever more scarce, he wrote in his diary that he was reduced to "eating the unknown". During the Paris Commune — the revolutionary government that took power on 18 March and was toppled on 28 May — Victor Hugo was harshly critical of the atrocities committed on both sides.
On 9 April, he wrote in his diary, "In short, this Commune is as idiotic as the National Assembly is ferocious. From both sides, folly. Death to the scoundrel! Victor Hugo, who said "A war between Europeans is a civil war", [24] was an enthusiastic advocate for the creation of the United States of Europe. He expounded his views on the subject in a speech he delivered during the International Peace Congress which took place in Paris in The conference helped establish Hugo as a prominent public speaker and sparked his international fame, and promoted the idea of the "United States of Europe".
However, in Pauvert 's published archives, he states strongly that "any work of art has two authors: When one of the authors dies, the rights should totally be granted back to the other, the people". He was one of the earlier supporters of the concept of domaine public payant , under which a nominal fee would be charged for copying or performing works in the public domain, and this would go into a common fund dedicated to helping artists, especially young people. Hugo's religious views changed radically over the course of his life.
In his youth and under the influence of his mother, he identified as a Catholic and professed respect for Church hierarchy and authority. From there he became a non-practicing Catholic and increasingly expressed anti-Catholic and anti-clerical views. A census-taker asked Hugo in if he was a Catholic, and he replied, "No.
After , Hugo never lost his antipathy towards the Catholic Church. He felt the Church was indifferent to the plight of the working class under the oppression of the monarchy. Perhaps he also was upset by the frequency with which his work appeared on the Church's list of banned books. In his will, he made the same stipulation about his own death and funeral. Yet he believed in life after death and prayed every single morning and night, convinced as he wrote in The Man Who Laughs that "Thanksgiving has wings and flies to its right destination.
Your prayer knows its way better than you do". Hugo's rationalism can be found in poems such as Torquemada , about religious fanaticism , The Pope , anti-clerical , Religions and Religion , denying the usefulness of churches and, published posthumously, The End of Satan and God and respectively, in which he represents Christianity as a griffin and rationalism as an angel.
Although Hugo's many talents did not include exceptional musical ability, he nevertheless had a great impact on the music world through the inspiration that his works provided for composers of the 19th and 20th century. Hugo himself particularly enjoyed the music of Gluck and Weber. Two famous musicians of the 19th century were friends of Hugo: Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt. The latter played Beethoven in Hugo's home, and Hugo joked in a letter to a friend that, thanks to Liszt's piano lessons, he learned how to play a favourite song on the piano — with only one finger.
Hugo also worked with composer Louise Bertin , writing the libretto for her opera La Esmeralda , which was based on the character in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. On the other hand, he had low esteem for Richard Wagner , whom he described as "a man of talent coupled with imbecility. Well over one thousand musical compositions have been inspired by Hugo's works from the 19th century until the present day.
In particular, Hugo's plays, in which he rejected the rules of classical theatre in favour of romantic drama, attracted the interest of many composers who adapted them into operas. More than one hundred operas are based on Hugo's works and among them are Donizetti 's Lucrezia Borgia , Verdi 's Rigoletto and Ernani , and Ponchielli 's La Gioconda Today, Hugo's work continues to stimulate musicians to create new compositions.
Remarkably, not only Hugo's literary production has been the source of inspiration for musical works, but also his political writings have received attention from musicians and have been adapted to music. When Hugo returned to Paris in , the country hailed him as a national hero. He was confident that he would be offered the dictatorship , as shown by the notes he kept at the time. Throughout his life Hugo kept believing in unstoppable humanistic progress. In his last public address on 3 August he prophesied in an over-optimistic way, "In the twentieth century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, hatred will be dead, frontier boundaries will be dead, dogmas will be dead; man will live.
Charles de Gaulle - Wikipedia
His faithful mistress, Juliette Drouet , died in , only two years before his own death. Despite his personal loss, Hugo remained committed to the cause of political change. On 30 January , he was elected to the newly created Senate. This last phase of his political career was considered a failure. Hugo was a maverick and achieved little in the Senate. Hugo suffered a mild stroke on 27 June On 27 June, one of the largest parades in French history was held. The paraders marched for six hours past Hugo as he sat at the window at his house.
On 20 May , le Petit Journal published the official medical bulletin on Hugo's health condition. Hugo's death from pneumonia on 22 May , at the age of 83, generated intense national mourning. He was not only revered as a towering figure in literature, he was a statesman who shaped the Third Republic and democracy in France. All his life he remained a defender of liberty, equality and fraternity as well as an adamant champion of French culture.
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In , aged 75, he wrote, "I am not one of these sweet-tempered old men. I am still exasperated and violent. I shout and I feel indignant and I cry. Woe to anyone who harms France! I do declare I will die a fanatic patriot. Most large French towns and cities have a street named after him. Je donne cinquante mille francs aux pauvres. Je crois en Dieu. I wish to be buried in their hearse. I refuse [funeral] orations from all Churches. I ask all souls for a prayer. I believe in God. Hugo produced more than 4, drawings. Originally pursued as a casual hobby, drawing became more important to Hugo shortly before his exile when he made the decision to stop writing to devote himself to politics.
Drawing became his exclusive creative outlet between and Hugo worked only on paper, and on a small scale; usually in dark brown or black pen-and-ink wash, sometimes with touches of white, and rarely with colour. The surviving drawings are surprisingly accomplished and "modern" in their style and execution, foreshadowing the experimental techniques of Surrealism and Abstract expressionism. He would not hesitate to use his children's stencils, ink blots, puddles and stains, lace impressions, " pliage " or folding e. Rorschach blots , " grattage " or rubbing, often using the charcoal from matchsticks or his fingers instead of pen or brush.
Sometimes he would even toss in coffee or soot to get the effects he wanted. Hugo kept his artwork out of the public eye, fearing it would overshadow his literary work. However, he enjoyed sharing his drawings with his family and friends, often in the form of ornately handmade calling cards, many of which were given as gifts to visitors when he was in political exile. Some of his work was shown to, and appreciated by, contemporary artists such as van Gogh and Delacroix ; the latter expressed the opinion that if Hugo had decided to become a painter instead of a writer, he would have outshone the artists of their century.
They lived together for nearly 46 years until she died in August From February until her death in , Juliette Drouet devoted her whole life to Victor Hugo, who never married her even after his wife died in He took her on his numerous trips and she followed him in exile on Guernsey. There Hugo rented a house for her near Hauteville House , his family home.
She wrote some 20, letters in which she expressed her passion or vented her jealousy on her womanizing lover. He left his children a note reading as follows:. She saved my life in December For me she underwent exile. Never has her soul forsaken mine. Let those who have loved me love her. Let those who have loved me respect her. She is my widow. Both were caught in adultery on 5 July Hugo, who had been a Member of the Chamber of Peers since April, avoided condemnation whereas his mistress had to spend two months in prison and six in a convent.