The man whose voice had resonated from the tomb of exile

The man [de Gaulle] whose voice had resonated from the tomb of exile and emboldened its cringing listeners in their darkened rooms had stridden Paris like a giant. Though his gauntness bore poignant testimony to four long years of London fog and English food, he still had the bearing of a leader. he had stooped beneath the arc de Triomphe and laid a cross of white roses on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He had walked the length of the Champs-Élysées cheered from every tree and lamp post, saluted by officers whose cratered cheeks were moist with tears and kissed by pretty girls who darted from the crowd waving hankerchiefs and ribbons.

G. Robb, The Parisians (2010), 317