Henri Charles Alexandre de Gaulle (22 November 1848 – 3 May 1932) was a French civil servant and later a schoolteacher. He was the father of
Charles de Gaulle, a general of the French army and
President of France
The president of France, officially the president of the French Republic (french: Président de la République française), is the executive head of state of France, and the commander-in-chief of the French Armed Forces. As the presidency i ...
.
Biography
Early life
Henri de Gaulle was born on 22 November 1848 in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
. His father, Julien Philippe de Gaulle, was an historian. His mother was Joséphine Marie Anne (Maillot) de Gaulle.
Career
He volunteered in the
Franco-Prussian War; his men chose him as their second lieutenant on several occasions.
A civil servant in the
interior ministry for fifteen years, in 1884 he resigned his post to protest against the
anti-clerical
Anti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historical anti-clericalism has mainly been opposed to the influence of Roman Catholicism. Anti-clericalism is related to secularism, which seeks to ...
policies of the
Third Republic.
A "monarchist in feeling and a republican in thought" (''monarchiste de regret et républicain de raison''), as he liked to call himself, Henri de Gaulle began working at a
Jesuit high school in Paris, teaching French, Latin and Ancient Greek. Among his students were his four sons, as well as
Georges Bernanos
Louis Émile Clément Georges Bernanos (; 20 February 1888 – 5 July 1948) was a French author, and a soldier in World War I. A Catholic with monarchist leanings, he was critical of elitist thought and was opposed to what he identified as defe ...
and the future marshals
Philippe Leclerc
Philippe François Marie Leclerc de Hauteclocque (22 November 1902 – 28 November 1947) was a Free-French general during the Second World War. He became Marshal of France posthumously in 1952, and is known in France simply as le maréchal ...
and
Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. He was nicknamed PDG (''père de Gaulle'' – "Father de Gaulle"), but was respected and esteemed for the quality of his teaching.
Personal life
On 2 August 1886 he married his second cousin, Jeanne Maillot (28 April 1860,
Lille
Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...
– 16 July 1940, Sainte-Addresse), with whom he had a daughter and four sons:
*Xavier Joseph Marie (1887–1955)
*Marie-Agnès Caroline Julie (1889–1982)
*Charles André Joseph Marie (1890–1970)
*Jacques Henri Jules Marie (1893–1946)
*Pierre Julien Joseph Marie (1897–1959)
He retired with his wife to Sainte-Adresse, close to
Le Havre
Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very ...
, at the home of their daughter Marie-Agnès Cailliau. There, he helped his son Charles refine his first military books.
Death
He died at
Sainte-Adresse
Sainte-Adresse () is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the region of Normandy, France.
Geography
A coastal suburb situated some northwest of Le Havre city centre, at the junction of the D147 and the D940. The English Channel forms t ...
, on 3 May 1932, and is buried there with his wife.
See also
*
de Gaulle family
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaulle, Henri De
1848 births
1932 deaths
Henri
Civil servants from Paris
French military personnel of the Franco-Prussian War
Parents of presidents of France