‘Men pass, France continues.’29 De Gaulle wrote to Pleven on the following day: ‘The worst thing about this affair is that people think we are playing a poker game.’30 Obviously his theatrical withdrawal contained a strong element of bluff, but he had worked himself into a genuine frenzy about Muselier. Hour after hour he ranted against the perfidy of the British: ‘It is not enough for them to have burnt Joan of Arc once. They want to start again … They think perhaps that I am not someone easy to work with. But if I were, I would today be in Pétain’s General Staff.’
