On September 1, 1944, Alexis Leger was reinstatedas French Ambassador-at-Large. At the Liberation, all his rights were restored. Yet he did not immediately return to France, and declined prestigious positions, including Minister of Foreign Aff airs, which French president Vincent Auriol offered him in 1947. He remained in the United States until 1958, and despite the objective facts, persisted in calling this period an exile (a word that secretly confi rmed his status as poet). Offi cially he attributed his decision to his dismay over post-war France. He believed the country to be in “chaos” because of General de Gaulle, and on
the verge of “collapse.” France’s recourse to de Gaulle in 1958 confi rmed Leger’s belief that democratic institutions had fallen into disarray. We remember the disdain that prompted him to refuse de Gaulle’s overtures from London in 1940. Twenty years later, this disdain became an outright, systematic critique.11 In keeping with his democratic convictions, Leger continued to believe that a military ruler would inevitably place personal power above the Constitution. His letters during the next ten years, especially to Dag Hammarskjöld, are punctuated with references to the plight of “poor France,” led by a “Monarch”
whom he also called “the French Autocrat.” In Leger’s view, France was living under a monarchy; what it considered “constitutional” was really just a concession from the ruler. He saw the 1958 election that elected de Gaulle as a take-it-or-leave-it vote about one person and the immediate usefulness of one formula.

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