On 16th June 1940 in Bordeaux, an almost stranger Under-Secretary of State for War decided to secede and to rebel openly against the policy adopted by the French legal government, which was preparing to ask for an armistice. The following day, he flew to England. This episode tells the story of how a provisional general in a subordinate function became De Gaulle, leader of Free France, without who the country would have ended the war in the camp of the vanquished.