The Chief of the Staff of the French Army (French: Chef d'État-Major de l'Armée de Terre, CEMAT) is the professional head of the French Army. The current Chief of Staff of the French Army has been General Bertrand Ract-Madoux since September, 1st 2011. The CEMAT title has been in use since 1962; prior to that the position for the general in charge of France's land forces was referred to as Chef d'État-Major de l'Armée. The modern form of a general staff for the French Army emerged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with Louis Alexandre Berthier being Chief-of-Staff for the Grand État-Major Général (Army General Headquarters) of Napoleon's Grand Armée.
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“I was not content to believe in a personal devil and serve him, in the ordinary sense of the word. I wanted to get hold of him personally and become his chief of staff.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“Even if matter could do every outward thing that God does, the idea of it would not work as satisfactorily, because the chief call for a God on modern men’s part is for a being who will inwardly recognize them and judge them sympathetically. Matter disappoints this craving of our ego, so God remains for most men the truer hypothesis, and indeed remains so for definite pragmatic reasons.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Man, in spite of his tendency towards mendacity, has a great respect for what he calls the truth. Truth is his staff in his voyage through life; commonplaces are the bread in his bag and the wine in his jug.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“French rhetorical models are too narrow for the English tradition. Most pernicious of French imports is the notion that there is no person behind a text. Is there anything more affected, aggressive, and relentlessly concrete than a Parisan intellectual behind his/her turgid text? The Parisian is a provincial when he pretends to speak for the universe.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)