Edmond Michelet's remark on the attention given to the Rassemblement du Peuple Français (RPF) is only partly true. The two most important leaders of the RPF were de Gaulle, who founded the movement in April 1947, and Jacques Soustelle, who became its secretary. Neither of these men devoted more than a few pages of their memoirs to the description of the movement's activities. However, the RPF has been the subject of three distinguished academic books since its dissolution, and has attracted extensive discussion in more general works on the Fourth Republic. There are several reasons for this interest. Firstly, the sources for the RPF are exceptionally good, and access to the movement's archives has been granted to a number of historians. Secondly, the RPF contained a number of eminent political analysts, notably Raymond Aron, and other writers, such as René Rémond, felt sympathetic to Gaullism. Thirdly, de Gaulle's importance during the Second World War and later during the Fifth Republic encouraged analysts to see the RPF as part of a continuing tradition long after the other parties of the Fourth Republic had been consigned to the dustbin of history. Fourthly, the RPF's ambitions to win an absolute majority in parliament and its attempt to establish a direct relation with the electorate, as opposed to one mediated by notables or party organization, made it seem familiar to those who assumed that an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ party system was the ‘natural’ pattern of politics.