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No restrictions. Open for research.

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Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Charles de Gaulle Letter #5494-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Stirling Haig in May 2011 (Acc. 101429).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Matt Dailey, January 2012

Encoded by: Matt Dailey, January 2012

Diacritics and other special characters have been omitted from this finding aid to facilitate keyword searching in web browsers.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Gaulle, Charles de, 1890-1970.
• Hardre, Jacques, 1915-
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Faculty--History--20th century.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--Faculty--History--20th century.
• World War, 1939-1945--France.

Charles de Gaulle was a French general, statesman, and veteran of World War I and World War II. He led the Free French Forces during World War II and later served as France's President, 1944-1945; Prime Minister, 1958-1959; and Minister of Defense, 1958-1959, before founding the French Fifth Republic and serving as its first president, 1959-1969. De Gaulle died in 1970.

Jacques Hardre was born on 10 January 1915 in Dinan, France, and emigrated to the United States as a child. Hardre lived in Greensboro, N.C., before returning to France to attend school. He became a sergeant in the 129th Infantry Regiment of the French Army at the outbreak of World War II, but returned to Greensboro after his unit was demobilized. Hardre then relocated to London, England, and joined the First Armored Division of Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces for the remainder of the war. During the course of his life, Hardre was the recipient of many military and academic honors and awards, including the Croix de Guerre, the Medal of Free France, Senegal's National Order of the Lion, the Vermeil Medal, and the Legion of Honor. From 1945 until his retirement in 1977, Hardre was a faculty member of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, serving as both professor of French and chair of the Department of Romance Languages, during which time he published numerous books and articles concerning French culture, history, and literature. Hardre died on 16 November 1983 in Chapel Hill, N.C.

The collection consists of a matted letter written by Charles de Gaulle in July 1969 to Jaques Hardre. In the letter, de Gaulle expressed his appreciation for Hardre's earlier correspondence, which apparently talked about the anniversary of de Gaulle's historic World War II radio address of 18 June 1940 and enclosed a copy of Hardre's book, La France et sa civilisation (1969).