Word: colombey
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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When De Gaulle emerged from the somnolent village of Colombey-les-deux-Eglises last May, France was sliding hopelessly into civil war. "The carrots are cooked, the carrots are cooked," blared Radio Algiers, repeating with monotonous insistence the code phrase which signified that the rebellious generals of Algeria were ready to land their paratroops in Metropolitan France. In Paris white-faced ministers of the Fourth Republic nervously deployed a small army of steel-helmeted cops, not sure of their loyalty, and Interior Minister Jules Moch ordered coils of barbed wire laid out on 15 of the 18 airfields surrounding Paris...
...military briskness, De Gaulle in private life is a fond family man. Particularly devoted to his daughter Anne (who was born sickly and died in 1948), he and Madame de Gaulle have founded in her memory an institution for retarded children. At the 14-room house in Colombey, where he still spends his weekends, he loves to play the patriarch of the clan, gathering about him his naval officer son Philippe, his daughter Elizabeth (married to an army officer), his three grandchildren, and as many as possible of his 17 nieces and nephews and innumerable grandnieces and grandnephews...
Premier Charles de Gaulle asked France for a vote of confidence and this week got a thunderous shout of approval. An overwhelming 80% of French voters plumped for his version of the Fifth Republic. In De Gaulle's home village of Colombey-les-deux-Eglises, where the Premier was an early-morning voter at the town hall, 'the count on his referendum was oui, 195; non, 1. De Gaulle telephoned friends in Paris to assure them he was not the dissident voter...
...Gaulle himself, getting on with his nation's business, welcomed West Germany's Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to his home in Colombey-les-deux-Eglises. It was the first meeting for the two, and they talked for six hours. "Close cooperation of the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic," they declared, "is the basis of all constructive work in Europe...
Yvonne, daughter of a Calais biscuit-maker, has helped the general get his meals on time (lunch at 1, dinner at 8:30), at week's end sneaked home with him to Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, where they attended church, walked together along familiar country roads...