pened to be a Friday, four frustratednFrench generals who were bent onnkeeping Algeria French staged a militarynputsch in Algiers. Immediatelynmetropolitan France was swampednwith wild rumors, according to whichnles paras (the paratroopers) were aboutnto drop out of the sky over Paris, or hadneven landed to prepare a bridgeheadnnear Marseille. On Saturday morningna panicky Prime Minister Michel Debrenhad to go on the air—the televisionnscreen had not yet replaced thenradio set as a means of mass communication—andnplead with his countrymen,nasking them to go out to thenairport of Orly by any available meansn— in their automobiles, on bicycles, innvans, trucks, or carts, indeed “a pied ouna cheval” (on foot or on horseback, asnthe wits promptly mocked) in order tonblock the runways and prevent GeneralnSalan and his colleagues from landingntheir armed men and dangerousnmunitions. And indeed, for the nextnthree days everyone remained on tenter-hooks,nprepared for the grim newsnthat the invaders, like trans-MediterraneannMartians, had landed at last.nBut what, meanwhile, was denGaulle doing? The answer is simple:nhe spent a good part of that criticalnweekend in his country house atnColombey-les-Deux-Eglises . . . readingna book! Yes, a book about then”government of men” written bynPierre Massenet, a former aeronauticnengineer and wartime resister who,nafter the liberation, had been given thenthankless task of holding the “red”nseaport of Marseille against local Gommunistnmilitants, who at one point hadnwanted to seize the railway marshallingnyards at Aix-en-Provence and had beennkept from doing so by the planting ofnmines (this during the unforgettablyn”hot” summer of 1947). Well, notnonly did de Gaulle read Massenet’snbook, he was so impressed that he tooknthe trouble to write him a letter ofnappreciation. It was dated, as I recall,nSaturday, April 22—which is to say,nduring the very middle of the Algerianngenerals’ insurrection, when onenwould have supposed that de Gaulle’snattention was focused on more urgentnmatters. “Curieux, n’est-ce pas?” Massenetnlater said to me, showing me thenletter. Curious, indeed!nThough there is no telling what thatnextraordinary political chameleon.nFrancois Mitterrand, is likely to donnext, I very much doubt that he willnever reach this altitude of Olympiannaloofness. None of the crises he has sonfar had to face have been anywherennear as dangerous as those de Gaullenhad to deal with. But the fact remainsnthat because the Gonstitution of 1958nwas tailor-made for de Gaulle, it institutedna post of deputy-leader or “second-in-command”—nthe premiership.nIt was to be the job of the primenminister to deal with the unruly parliamentn(which de Gaulle basically dislikednintensely), to take care of irksomenadministrative chores — in a word, tondo the “dirty work” of daily governing.nThe devoted Michel Debre understoodnthis perfectly, stoically swallowingnhis most cherished ideas and principlesn(up until then he had been anfervent champion of a French Algeria)nand then retiring without a murmur ofncomplaint when the Master signified tonhim that his time was up and thatnsomeone of greater intellectual calibren(Georges Pompidou) was going to succeednhim.nEventually de Gaulle’s fondness fornPompidou turned into bitter hatred,nwhen he realized that his chosen “instrument”nhad a will of his own and —noh, sacrilege of sacrileges!—was gettingnready to succeed him.nThis is why the monarchical analogy,nin Mitterrand’s case, strikes me asnbeing as misleading as it is enlightening.nThe present rivalry that existsnbetween the harassed premier, MichelnRocard—the hardworking beaver whonhas to do the dirty work and take thenblame when things go badly — and thenaloof Frangois Mitterrand, ever readynand indeed of an eagle-eyed determinationnto seize the credit when thingsngo well, is nothing really new, evennthough it has been built into the verynheart of the Fifth Republic’s Gonstitution.nThe clash of wills—the bitternrivalry that so often divides father andnson, the potential “heir” from thenreigning family head — is an ancientnone and as old as Oedipus.nIn the entertaining Bebete-Show,nwhich occasionally precedes the 8 p.m.nnews round-up on France’s first TVnchannel and in which the country’snmajor political figures are all givennpartly animal faces, Mitterrand nownappears in the guise of a frog, andnMichel Rocard in that of a leaf-cladnnn”joker” or court fool. The relationshipnof lord and knave, of Seigneur andnbouffon, is thus wondrously transcribed,nand subdy exploited by jeannAmadou (the author of the wittynscript) by having Joker-Rocard addressnhis lord and master, Dieu, in outlandishnterms as, “O, Light of the Universe!,”n”Divine Fount of Sagacity!,”n”Beacon of the Gelestial Depths!,”n”Glorious Grankshaft of the Gosmos!,”nand so on.nMitterrand, in answer to journalists’nquestioning, has said that he doesn’tnmind in the least being turned into anfrog (slightly reminiscent of KennethnGrahame’s Toad of Toad Hall). Thisnkind of comic satire, after all, is flatteringnto his vanity and ego, whethernwould-be regal or demigodlike. It helpsnalleviate the feeling of irascible ennuinto which, insiders claim, FrangoisnMitterrand is increasingly prone, as anseptuagenarian who, notwithstandingnappearances — having himself escortednin the street by some ravishing youngnlady or making furtive trips to Venicen—knows that his is a mosdy spentnforce and that the reins, willy-nilly, arenslipping from his hands.nCurtis Cate is a historian andnbiographer who lives in Paris.nLetter FromnAnn Arbornby William RicenPizza Etc.nOn the drive in, there’s no sign saying,n”Welcome to Ann Arbor, Michigan’snBoom Town.” But the evidence is hardnto miss, especially if you’ve just drivennfrom the war zone that is Detroit.n(United States murder capital for yearsnrunning.) On the outskirts of Ann Arbornthere’s a lot of what a horticulturistnI know calls “landscraping.” On whatnwere once working farms, builders arenspiking down high-tech research parksnand townhouse subdivisions in the pricynnouvelle-Williamsburg mode. Downtown,nsmart European cars pull awaynfrom the Laura Ashley shop. The driversnseem oblivious to the occasionalnbumpersticker on a tradesman’s van:nJULY 1989/41n