Rare London letter from Charles de GAULLE at the dawn of 1943.

Charles de GAULLE (1890.1970)

Autograph letter signed to Yvonne Salmon.

Two pages in-8° on paper with its letterhead.

London. 4, Carlton Gardens. January 2, 1943.

At the dawn of 1943, the General sent his best wishes while thanking his faithful ally for the very symbolic gift of a cigar box that she had given him. We attach the draft of the very moving letter from Yvonne Salmon addressed to General de Gaulle on December 24, 1942.

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“Dear Miss, I am deeply touched by the gift you gave me and the way you gave it. Although very embarrassed by the scruple of accepting a souvenir that your father left you, I cannot allow myself to refuse it to you. I ask you to believe how sincere the New Year wishes I have for you. How could I neglect a quality French woman who knew how to find words and gestures of comfort for a man who rarely finds anything else? My wife joins me to express a thousand wishes and our best memories to you. C. de Gaulle. »

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Draft letter from Yvonne Salmon to General de Gaulle. Two oblong octavo pages. December 24, 1942.

“My General, For three months I have been particularly attached to giving conferences and writing a little book for English schoolchildren with the title: Charles de Gaulle; so that my mind was constantly occupied with what my father would think if he were alive at this moment and my gratitude to you is still increased. My father really liked his cigar box which came from my mother's family; It is only for the sentimental value that we attach to it that I ask you to accept it on my part and that of my brother and my sister, both in France. Mr. Théoin, whose father was a friend of mine and who thought like him when it came to honor and France, asks your permission to put the cigars that fill it. We only see in this little thing the opportunity to express to you our wishes that God will help you in your very difficult task of remaining pure in a world that does not want to see where moral equivocation leads. Only you give meaning to our struggle and prevent honest people from despair. This is why we are grateful to you for kindly accepting our little tribute with the assurance of my deep devotion. »

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Yvonne Salmon (1885-1965), army nurse during the Great War, then professor of French civilization at the University of Reading, offered her services to General de Gaulle the day after the appeal of June 18. An active propagandist for Free France through the Alliance Française, she gave countless conferences and published in 1943, in London, the first biography of the leader of Free France entitled "General de Gaulle", which was republished in Algiers in 1945 and in Paris in 2010. After the war, she remained a convinced Gaullist.