Anne de Gaulle (1 January 1928 - 6 February 1948) was the youngest daughter of General Charles de Gaulle and his wife, Yvonne. She was born in Trier, Germany, where her father was stationed.
She was born with Down syndrome and lived with her family until her death. De Gaulle's relatives all testified that the General, who was normally undemonstrative in his affections for his family, was more open and extroverted with Anne.
In October 1945, Yvonne de Gaulle bought the Château de Vert-Cœur at Milon-la-Chapelle (Yvelines), where they installed a private hospital for handicapped young girls: the Fondation Anne de Gaulle.
Anne died of Pneumonia, on 6 February 1948 at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises. Upon her death, her father said: "Now, she's like the others." ("Maintenant, elle est comme les autres.")
On 22 August 1962, Charles de Gaulle was the victim of an attempted assassination at Petit-Clamart. He later said that the potentially fatal bullet had been stopped by the frame of the photograph of Anne that he always carried with him, placed this particular day on the rear shelf of his car. When he died in 1970, he was buried in the cemetery of Colombey beside his beloved daughter.
Famous quotes containing the words anne and/or gaulle:
“Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist—the only thing he’s good for—is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning. Even if it’s only his view of a meaning. That’s what he’s for—to give his view of life.”
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)
“Old France, weighed down with history, prostrated by wars and revolutions, endlesly vacillating from greatness to decline, but revived, century after century, by the genius of renewal!”
—Charles De Gaulle (1890–1970)