POMPIDOU & CIRCUMSTANCE

MY fate," French Premier Georges Pompidou once said, "is to be President of the Republic --or leader of the opposition." If last week's election results could not quite guarantee Pompidou his first choice, they certainly lessened his chances of ever having to settle for the second. The Gaullist sweep among France's voters--and the turn of events that led to it--have clearly made Pompidou the President's indispensable second-in-command and undisputed heir apparent. "My signature," De Gaulle calls him, and now that seems to carry the imprimatur of succession.

It was Pompidou who, more than anyone else, managed to guide France through the greatest peacetime crisis in more than 100 years. While De Gaulle brooded alone in the Elysee, thinking in characteristically bold strokes about how to end the chaos, Pompidou all but ran the government from an emergency command post set up near his office in the Hotel Matignon. When some Ministers started cracking under the strain (one took to packing a pistol under his coat, another wanted to crush the rebellion in the same way that he had put down Algerian terrorism), Pompidou calmly took over their responsibilities. Sleeping in snatches near his desk and eating little but snacks, he urged concessions for the dissident students when others counseled a show of strength. He hammered out an agreement that eventually ended labor's general strike, and he pleaded with De Gaulle to live above the crisis for as long as possible. When the President did proclaim his intention to stand fast in the dramatic speech that brought a beginning of order, he singled out Pompidou's heroic efforts: "I will not change the Premier, whose worth, whose steadfastness, whose capacities merit the homage of everyone."

It was rare tribute from Charles de Gaulle, but deserved. A professor of literature until World War II, Pompidou has spent 24 years as a Gaullist friend and confidant, an adviser in De Gaulle's political triumphs, the editor of his memoirs. In the same years, and with little preparation for any of them, he pursued three remarkably successful careers. Without ever having studied law, he turned in a first-rate jurist's performance when assigned to an administrative court in De Gaulle's postwar government. Without ever having trained as a banker, he attracted the attention of Guy de Rothschild, rose to become chief administrative officer of France's Rothschild Bank in the 1950s. Without ever having delivered a public speech, joined De Gaulle's own party or stood for election, Pompidou, at 50, was appointed Premier by De Gaulle six years ago. From the start, he performed with grand personal style and only an occasional political misstep.

An avid collector of modern art, Pompidou as Premier yanked down the fusty old portraits of Richelieu, Colbert and other ancient statesmen and filled his office walls with splashy Soulages, Ernsts and Buffets. Later, he replaced the sculptured nymphs in the garden of his offices with a modern sculpture that Culture Minister Andre Malreaux had recommended as "unknown but remarkable."

His debut in Parliament turned out to be no less remarkable; he lost his entire first Cabinet in a fight over a constitutional amendment proposing direct popular election of the President--the first and only time a Fifth Republic government has lost a confidence vote.

Then he clashed with De Gaulle over the scheduled execution of a leader in the Algerian generals' putsch. De Gaulle gave in, granting clemency, when Pompidou threatened to resign. From then on, Pompidou determined to venture farther away from De Gaulle's towering shadow. In 1967, he ordered most of his government, himself included, to enter Assembly elections; elected from his native Auvergne, he finally gained a local power base of his own.

After he became Premier, Pompidou and his bubbly wife, Claude, increasingly gave up fancy-dress parties at the Rothschild chateau southeast of Paris and summers with the literati in Saint-Tropez. Instead, for the past two years, the Pompidous have rented a chateau in Brittany, where the water is more bracing. They still spend weekends, however, at their country home at Orvilliers outside Paris or their farm at Cajarc in the south of France. Pompidou reads and tends his rosebushes, his wife practices her horsemanship. In the city, they occasionally go to first nights at the theater and constantly browse through the galleries for new paintings. Those that are not at the Matignon decorate their six-room, Louis XV- and XVI-furnished apartment overlooking Notre Dame Cathedral from Paris' fashionable and romantic Ile Saint-Louis.

The Pompidous entertain frequently, both at large receptions at the Matignon and at dinner parties for twelve in their apartment, where Pompidou holds forth on everything from his favorite nouvelle vague film director (Jean-Luc Godard) to his favorite poet (Baudelaire, whose work he never reads "without emotion"). In fact, Pompidou ranks somewhere among the literati himself, having begun work on two novels ("It would be entertaining to be a writer") and edited a widely used anthology of French poetry.

These days, politics takes precedence over everything, including the wedding of his only son Alain, 25, a recent medical-school graduate, which was unfortunately scheduled during last month's crisis. Pompidou saw the civil ceremony on home slides the night of the election; he did get to the church ceremony some days later.

"When I first arrived at the Matignon, my desire was to reconcile Parliament and De Gaulle," he says. "I had forgotten only two things. Parliament and De Gaulle." But if he has not reconciled the two institutions, he has at least bridged them. As for the future, Paris rumor has it that, during the tumult, Pompidou reached a clear but tacit agreement with De Gaulle on when the President would retire. Whether that is true or not, when a lonely, shaken De Gaulle was planning his now famous rendezvous with French generals, he found time to telephone Pompidou. De Gaulle's parting words seem as prophetic today as they were intimate then: "You have my affection."

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