The Dance of France

[from JackieStyle, by Pamela Clarke Keogh, Copyright, HarperCollins, 2001]

> > > > > A few weeks before their trip to Paris, Jackie gave an interview, in French, to a French television station. Seated at a small table under the trees on the White House lawn, while kitchen staff carrying trays of champagne glasses scurry in the background (it seems they are preparing for a state dinner), Jackie turns on the charm full blast. The interviewer is slim and suave, a continental on the Cassini model. He hangs on Jackie's every word, transfixed.

Jackie is wearing a favorite cream dress with a fringe-edged self-tie -- the same one she wore for the first official campaign photo Mark Shaw took of her in Georgetown, as well as on the cover of the issue of Life in which she discusses the White House restoration. Her voice is low and modulated. She is assured as she speaks in simple, impeccable French, adroitly mixing in French-accented English when she cannot think of the correct word. (She charmingly describes "Voici le diplomatic reception room" and "un petit peu de punch.")

...She especially charmed [Charles de Gaulle,] the self-centered general and World War II leader ("There are moments in history," he famously quipped, "and I am one of them."). Socialites tittered that he was so taken with the Cassini pink evening gown Jackie wore at the Elysée Palace that he even put his glasses on to survey her visage.

At one point, she told him, "My grandparents were French,"
to which he replied,

"Madame, so were mine." < < < < <