HE WAS one of the 20th century's political giants, a military general, a statesman and a legend in his own time, who after leading the Free French forces in resisting capitulation to Germany during World War II, became president of France in the immediate aftermath of the war and later played a leading role determining the future of France and Europe.

General Charles de Gaulle had also acquired a substantial property in the French village of Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises in 1934, and after the war when his political fortunes waned he withdrew repeatedly to Colombey, first on the establishment of the Fourth Republic in 1946, and then between 1953 and 1958, before he became president again at the height of the Algerian crisis and finally in 1969. He died the following year.

For many years "Colombey" became widely used as a political metaphor for a statesman who was withdrawing temporarily from political life and waiting for his country to come calling for him again, expecting a glorious return to power after spending several years in internal exile.