Review: Europe: The Other De Gaulle
| Date | 01 December 1974 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207402900434 |
| Author | John C. Cairns |
| Published date | 01 December 1974 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS/EUROPE
689
no
longer
exists,
but
in
its
diluted
form
in
France
or
in
the
various
forms
through
which
naked
or
concealed
quests
for
power
are
ex-
pressed
in
other
modern
states,
its
spirit
continues
to
shape
interna-
tional
politics.
Harvey Mitchell/University
of
British Columbia
THE
OTHER
DE
GAULLE
Diaries
1944-1954
Claude
Mauriac
London:
Angus
&:
Robertson
[Toronto:
Thomas
Nelson],
1973,
37
8
pp,
$12-.95
The
young
Claude
Mauriac
went
to work
as
a
confidential
secretary
to the
General
immediately
after
the
liberation
of
Paris.
He
remained
with
him
until
1948.
The
result
is
four
years
of
fascinating
diary
entries
(plus
a
scattering
of
notes
across
the
subsequent
twelve years).
No
one
has
yet
offered
a
more
intense
close-up
of
de
Gaulle
at
work
-
his courtlinesses
and
vituperations,
his
black
moods
and
enthusiasms.
Mauriac's
palpable
awe
in
no
way
betrayed
him
(in
this
journal
any-
way)
into
the embarrassing dithyrambics
of
his
celebrated
father
(whose
ultimate
encomia
of de
Gaulle,
after
some
inconstancy,
were
hard
to
take).
But
the
secretary clearly
captured
the
force
of
the
extraordinary
man
whose
correspondence he
was
taking
care
of.
The
wonder
is
that
he
could
stand
working
so
long
for
this
often
tyran-
nical
man
with
his
endless
diatribes
and
his sometimes
thoughtless
manners. But the
magnetism
was
there
always,
and readers
will
dis-
cover
again
what
it
was.
Here,
among
many
occasions,
are
splendid
accounts
of
Malraux
in
full
conversational
flight,
an
egregious
Georges
Duhamel
pumping
himself
up
as
a
resister
before
the
contempt-filled
Liberator,
de
Gaulle
claiming
to
beseech
God's
daily
forgiveness
for
having
put
Bidault
at
the
Quai
d'Orsay, and
the
beginning
of
the
ill-fated
RPF
movement
which,
but
for
the
Fourth
Republic's
collapse,
might
have
been
final
judg-
ment
on
the
General.
The
translation,
by
Moura
Budberg
and
Gordon
Latta,
is
smooth,
but
has
its
awkwardnesses
and misrenderings.
Alas,
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