« Ode to the Man Who Was France »

Written directly in English on the death of General de Gaulle (9 November 1970), the text was published under the title “Ode to the Man Who Was France” in Life on 21 November 1970 (volume 69, pp. 42, 42A, 42B, 42C, 42D). The French translation was only established much later, by Paul Audi, in Ode à l’homme qui fut la France (Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1997).

There is little need to dwell further on the relationship between Charles de Gaulle and Romain Gary. From 1945 onward, Gary sent him every one of his books, and the relationship between the two men could alone fill a volume.

These leaves are exceptional and historic on several counts, bringing together General de Gaulle and Romain Gary, Compagnon de la Libération: they show a former spokesman for the French delegation to the United Nations, and former French Consul General in Los Angeles under the presidency of Charles de Gaulle, preparing to bear witness, on behalf of France, before America, to the greatness of a man who had been leader, comrade, president and friend. They also illustrate, from the very genesis of the text and through its evolution — with numerous corrections made in the immediacy of grief, respect and homage — Romain Gary’s mastery of American English, his other language of literary expression.

Above all, because Romain Gary himself, in a strikingly radical way, set this text apart from all the other pieces he had devoted to de Gaulle (nearly ten in fact, since December 1958): “I never wrote about General de Gaulle, except at the time of his death,” he admitted (Jean Faucher’s Radio Canada broadcast “Propos et confidences,” filmed at Romain Gary’s home in early 1980, aired January–February 1982; transcribed in Romain Gary, Le Sens de ma vie, Paris, Gallimard, 2014, p. 47).

The mere memory of Gary’s presence, in his ill-fitting military uniform, at de Gaulle’s funeral, where he arrived by helicopter alongside André Malraux, is enough to recall the profound and foundational importance of the relationship between the two men.

This manuscript was mentioned in the catalogue Manuscrits de Romain Gary, 1958–1980 from the album Lectures de Romain Gary (Paris, co-published by Gallimard, Magazine Littéraire, Musée des lettres et des manuscrits, 2010, p. 220). It had not been exhibited and was cited only as to its existence. It had never been seen.

Accompanied by the issue of Life in which the text was published.