A typed letter signed by Winston S. Churchill, 7 June 1947, to Mrs. Torfrida Oliver, wife of Vice-Admiral Robert Don Oliver, recalling his reception in Paris that May, when Paul Ramadier presented him with the Médaille militaire, one of France's highest military distinctions, in recognition of his wartime leadership. Churchill thanks her for passing on a gendarme's remark from the visit, then records the exchange himself in a typed note:
"I had said to the gendarme, seeing a number of them in the street, Est-ce que l'on monte sa garde pour M. Churchill?
The gendarme replied; 'Oh, Churchill n'a pas besoin de garde, il est chez lui!'"
Churchill does not need a guard — he is at home. Few lines better capture the affection in which France held him in the immediate aftermath of the war. He closes by asking that his thanks be conveyed to Henry Oliver, a mark of his continuing ties to senior naval figures.
Single sheet on printed Chartwell letterhead overtyped with the London address 28 Hyde Park Gate, S.W.7, typed on one side and signed Winston S. Churchill, with the additional typed anecdotal note. Hole-punched upper left, light toning, signature slightly smudged; very good overall.
Provenance: Sotheby's, London, 8 November 1983, lot 369.
A typed letter signed by Winston S. Churchill, 7 June 1947, to Mrs. Torfrida Oliver, wife of Vice-Admiral Robert Don Oliver, recalling his reception in Paris that May, when Paul Ramadier presented him with the Médaille militaire, one of France's highest military distinctions, in recognition of his wartime leadership. Churchill thanks her for passing on a gendarme's remark from the visit, then records the exchange himself in a typed note:
"I had said to the gendarme, seeing a number of them in the street, Est-ce que l'on monte sa garde pour M. Churchill?
The gendarme replied; 'Oh, Churchill n'a pas besoin de garde, il est chez lui!'"
Churchill does not need a guard — he is at home. Few lines better capture the affection in which France held him in the immediate aftermath of the war. He closes by asking that his thanks be conveyed to Henry Oliver, a mark of his continuing ties to senior naval figures.
Single sheet on printed Chartwell letterhead overtyped with the London address 28 Hyde Park Gate, S.W.7, typed on one side and signed Winston S. Churchill, with the additional typed anecdotal note. Hole-punched upper left, light toning, signature slightly smudged; very good overall.
Provenance: Sotheby's, London, 8 November 1983, lot 369.
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