Le Fil de l'Epée

"A fascinating book. I’ve got about twenty books, mainly in French, about de Gaulle , and I can’t find – to my sorrow – Le Fil de L’Epée , which I think was translated into English as ‘The Blade of the Sword’ or something. It was written in the early 30s when de Gaulle was a colonel in the French army, and in the book he describes what a leader should be and do. It’s fascinating in that it is an exact description of the way he behaved when he was a leader during and after the war. Having observed him a bit at the time and seeing him come back to power, I can see that it’s a description of what enabled him to be the strong leader that he was. It’s almost an autobiography, written before rather than after. He described how a great leader ought to behave, and then he went on to behave that way ten years later. His impact on French diplomacy was incredible. He was an international diplomat of the calibre of anybody you like. You don’t compromise; you have a very clear vision of what the national interest is – this, specifically, is a very nationalistic book about France. There’s the famous line at the beginning of his memoirs, as you know: ‘All my life I’ve had a certain idea of France.’ That spirit informs the book, and it’s about how you stand up against he opponent, how you argue your way through a problem, always maintaining a firm position, always being absolutely clear in your objective. It’s a description of a very intransigent, difficult, determined person. That exactly describes General de Gaulle. That’s a very interesting question. I don’t know. She would have felt a certain affinity if she had read it. I ought to have asked her. There is. But we’re both of us past our prime, let’s put it that way."