Mémoires d’espoir. Mémoires de guerre.

A discreet but influential literary figure, Sylvie Genevoix is the daughter of Maurice Genevoix, whom de Gaulle held in very high esteem. In 1960 he entrusted her with the Verdun Memorial project, whose creation was decided on 23 October 1960 at the general assembly of the Comité National du Souvenir de Verdun. The French State, under the presidency of Charles de Gaulle, launched a major national subscription to finance the project.

Born on 17 May 1944 in Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, Sylvie Genevoix grew up at Les Vernelles, the family home acquired by her father in 1927. There she developed a deep attachment to the Loire and to family memory, which she later recounted in her book La maison de mon père (2001). After studying classical literature at the Sorbonne, she began a career in publishing at Plon — Charles de Gaulle’s historic publisher since the Mémoires de guerre in 1954.

She started there as a press attaché at Éditions 10/18, then coordinated the literary departments at Plon-Perrin-Julliard, becoming literary director at Julliard. From 1992 to 2005 she was literary director at Albin Michel before being appointed to the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA), where she worked on the development of local television and the accessibility of programs to people with disabilities. She also presided over the Mission langue française et francophonie.

Here Charles de Gaulle expresses a touching trust in this intellectual heir of a writer he deeply admired, and in the young collaborator — she was only twenty-four — of the publishing house that published him.

The book, published two months before de Gaulle’s death, was meant to open a new trilogy. Only two volumes appeared: Le Renouveau, then L’Effort, published posthumously. Together they form an unfinished political and literary testament.

The first volumes of tome 1 arrived at La Boisserie in October: “For his final work, de Gaulle held exhausting signing sessions at La Boisserie. It would meet with considerable success. The General signed nearly five hundred copies […]. The Plon bookshop announced that, after an initial print run of two hundred fifty thousand copies, distributed from Wednesday morning, it had had to begin, on Friday, a further printing of one hundred thousand additional copies of this work. Among the recipients of the seventeen copies bearing the notice “printed specially for…” and an inscription by the author were, besides Mme de Gaulle and her children, Mrs. Eisenhower, in memory of her husband, the son of Chancellor Adenauer, the Pope, the Queen of England, Messrs. Khrushchev and Macmillan, as well as the General’s three former prime ministers. For his part, Mr. Georges Pompidou had received his copy as early as Tuesday, shortly before his departure for the USSR […]. The General’s Mémoires were awaited with a mixture of impatience and apprehension, for they deal with events about which passions and prejudices remain strong. But General de Gaulle proves once again that he knows how to give historical perspective to the recent past.” (Le Monde, 12 October 1970).

General de Gaulle died a few days later, on 9 November 1970.

L’Effort appeared posthumously in the first quarter of 1971, together with a reissue, in the same series, of the Mémoires de guerre.

The Sylvie Genevoix copy of this edition is included. A printed calling card reading “Général de Gaulle” was placed in the first volume.