L'Etat, C'est Moi!

Stiffly stuffy Charles de Gaulle last week heard that the French Government wished to present a special medal* to him, Stalin, Churchill and (posthumously) Roosevelt. De Gaulle approved the other three, but bowed himself out with giraffe-like grace. Said he, updating Louis XIV: "Governments do not decorate themselves. The acts that I accomplished were done at a time when I exercised the function of Chief of State."

* At Utrecht, goldsmiths were fashioning another special award: a richly jeweled sword which Queen Wilhelmina will present to General Eisenhower. The Dutch newspaper Het Binnenhoj rhapsodized: "It will be a sword as worn by the kings of fairyland, and it is well earned."

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