Word: colombey
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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...
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...
...kaleidoscopic confusion of events in France emerged two arresting facts. In his first seven days in power Charles de Gaulle had managed to give his country firmer government than it had known in the preceding seven years. And in the process the stiff old soldier from Colombey-les-Deux Eglises had displayed precisely the two qualities his critics insisted that he lacked-a talent for conciliation and a mastery of political maneuver worthy of a Talleyrand or a Tammany sachem...