De Gaulle's Cat: A Quiet Diplomat of Free France

In 1940, General Charles de Gaulle was in exile in London, delivering the famous June 18th address calling on the French to keep resisting. Few know that in his small London flat, a small black-and-white tomcat named Ringo often lay on his desk. Ringo was a gift from a neighborhood British lady, accepted at first out of politeness, but he quickly became an important source of comfort in a foreign land. He liked to nap on the corners of de Gaulle's speeches, and the general once joked, 'Ringo understands politics better than I do — he says nothing, so no one can argue with him.' Ringo stayed with de Gaulle through the Liberation of Paris in 1944. When de Gaulle returned to politics in 1958, a grey cat named Chartreuse took Ringo's place.