Word: moment
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...hardly seemed possible, but Charles de Gaulle was gone. At one moment he had been there, seemingly as durable as the Arc de Triomphe, the most commanding figure ruling any nation, large or small, on the face of the earth. Now, abruptly, he was a retired country gentleman, a recluse in the tiny village of Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises sorting his memoirs, to be glimpsed only through a furtive telephoto lens and, most astonishing, to be heard not at all. Within twelve hours after his resignation in the wake of a referendum vote against his policies, workmen had moved...
...response to De Gaulle was strongly emotional, but the French are, au fond, a pre-eminently reasonable rather than sentimental people. So long as there seemed a plausible correlation between De Gaulle's aims and France's means, the fervor for the Cross of Lorraine held firm. But the moment De Gaulle got beyond what French common sense thought to be feasible, he began to gradually lose his constituency until finally it was gone...
Finally, the dread myth that he had created about his moment of departure had been dispelled. France simply no longer feared the "deluge" that De Gaulle so often promised would follow him. FRANCE CONTINUES, headlined a Marseille paper when the moment finally arrived, but no one any longer doubted that France would. On the night of the referendum, there were some sharp, ugly scenes in the Latin Quarter between police and students, but they were largely provoked by the flics, as though attempting to incite the Gaullist prophecy into reality. If that was the aim, it failed. France accepted...
...balcony of his palatial Lisbon house to greet the crowd that had gathered to honor his 80th birthday and the 41st anniversary of his rise to power. It was the venerable strongman's first public appearance since he suffered a massive stroke seven months ago, and for a moment he looked like his old imposing self, raising his right hand in a characteristic gesture. Later he appeared on television, and in a pathetically feeble voice thanked the nation for its concern for his welfare. No one has yet told him that he is no longer Premier; he was replaced...
...Such a moment of glory has its price...