The Beautiful Road

An instant before 8 o'clock one night last week the radio and TV sets of France momentarily fell silent. Then, over hundreds of thousands of loudspeakers, a solemn voice boomed: ''French unity was breaking. Civil war was about to start. In the eyes of the world France appeared on the point of dissolution. It was then that I assumed the task of governing our country."

In the six minutes that followed, 67-year-old Charles de Gaulle, who knows how to make an effective short speech, briskly ticked off the awesome array of problems that bedevil France--rebellion in Algeria, strained relations with Tunisia, impending economic catastrophe, an unworkable system of government. In a burst of eloquence, he concluded: " 'Is not all this too much for us?' murmur those who. because they believe nothing can succeed, end up by wanting nothing to succeed . . . No, it is not too much for France, for this marvelous country that despite its past trials and the disorder of its affairs has in hand all the elements of an extraordinary renewal . . . The road is hard, but it is beautiful. The goal is difficult, but it is great. Let us go. The starting signal has been given."

Principle v. Tactics. This was stirring stuff, bui whether it would stir any vast number of Frenchmen up that hard but beautiful road was still to be seen. After the first wave of gratitude at a firm hand. French politicians were already beginning to like the thought of the politics that would be resumed when De Gaulle relinquishes his temporary mandate. On the far left, tubby Communist Boss Jacques busily trying party as the voice of "the republican masses," opened a drive for a popular front to defeat De Gaulle's proposed constitutional reforms. (After a long, nervous and undecided silence. Moscow's Pravda las: week published a Duclos interview labeling De Gaulle's government ''the embodiment of the blackest reaction." ) At the other end of the political spectrum, fascist-inclined Pierre Poujade dissolved his 31 -man bloc in the National Assembly, said it was time to re sume ''the anti-parliamentary campaign." Nowhere was the after-De Gaulle maneuvering more conspicuous than in the shell-shocked Socialist Party. One of its wings, led by ex-Premier Guy Mollet, had joined forces with De Gaulle, making his return to power possible, in the conviction that only thus could civil war be avoided. The other -- and larger -- wing fought De Gaulle's investiture, and it continued to oppose him last week in the belief that only this would permit the Socialists, and not the Communists, to lead an eventual left-wing reaction against De Gaulle.

In Brussels, at a meeting of the Socialist International, leaders of most of Western Europe's Socialist parties last week made it clear that they believed principle to be on the side of the anti-Gaullists. De Gaulle, argued Britain's Hugh Gaitskell sternly, had come to power by "a fundamentally undemocratic procedure." The International, insisted West Germany's Erich Ollenhauer, "must take a position against De Gaulle." "We cannot be silent," echoed Aneurin Bevan.

"Silence is not an effective instrument of democracy." Speaking for the French party, anti-Gaullist Albert Gazier. in a rare display of political candor, dismissed all this earnest talk as irrelevant. Don't rock our boat. French Socialists pleaded; there are advantages in having Socialists on the inside and on the out.

Cash & Concessions. While this normal fretwork of the politicians went on, the general himself calmly busied himself with the here and now. To supply the government with ready cash, and to sop up excess purchasing power, wispy Fi put on sale 3.5% tax-free government bonds, which as a hedge against inflation will be pegged to the market value of the gold napoleon (last week 3.600 francs). While De Gaulle appealed to patriotism in launching the loan. Pinay remembered the practical side. In the hope of attracting urgently needed foreign exchange, Pinay was even prepared to let Frenchmen buy the bond with previously undeclared -- and hence illegal -- foreign currency holdings. "That law," explained Pinay blandly, "has never been enforced anyway." De Gaulle himself was hard at work on constitutional reform. Some details gradually leaked out. Upon a nation with an ingrained distrust of strong government, the general hoped to impose a President who could not only appoint Premiers without parliamentary approval but would also be empowered to dissolve Parliament at will. To balance still more the power of the popularly elected National Assembly, De Gaulle would like to establish a strong Senate whose members would include representatives of France's local governments and overseas territories, plus spokesmen for such economic and social groupings as organized labor, agriculture, management and the intellectuals.

No less revolutionary were De Gaulle's publicly avowed plans to "organize on a federal model" the relationships between France and its overseas possessions. De Gaulle remained carefully vague as to whether or not Algeria would also get "federal" status under his new order. But he was already showing a willingness to make major concessions to restore peace in North Africa. France promised to withdraw all troops within a month from eleven garrison posts scattered through the south and east of Morocco, and seems to be prepared to evacuate all its bases in Tunisia save the great naval installations at Bizerte (as proposed by the Anglo-American "good offices" team, which can expect no credit).

Which Emperor? The beautiful road that De Gaulle was mapping out might yet prove to be one that Frenchmen are too divided or too self-indulgent to follow. Perhaps, in the end, the politicians would be justified in their belief that the crucial question was not whether De Gaulle would succeed but who would succeed him.

But for now, as he made plain, the destiny of France still lies squarely in the hands of proud Charles de Gaulle. Searching last week for a suitable description for the general's Cabinet meetings--which he uses chiefly to announce decisions he has already reached--Information Chief Andre Malraux brashly chose to compare them to "those in Napoleon's time." French journalists, accustomed to subsisting off the daily indiscretions of the Cabinet ministers of the Fourth Republic, saw the whole thing in a different light. "Covering the government," moaned one, "is like trying to cover the court of the Emperor of Japan."

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