French Movie Hero Alain Delon has covered himself with real-life gloire by pulling off a dramatic rescue. What he saved was one of the great historic documents of modern France--the manuscript of Charles de Gaulle's resounding, rallying cry to Frenchmen during the dark days of June 1940. "France has lost a battle! But France has not lost the war!" De Gaulle wrote from the Free French headquarters that he had established in London. "France . . . will regain her liberty and her grandeur. Such is my goal, my only goal!" The single sheet on which the 131-word message was written had disappeared. Then, four days after De Gaulle's death, an unidentified Frenchman offered it to a Paris auction expert named Pierre de St. Cyr for $100,000, with the stipulation that the sale be secret and that it be made to a foreigner. Shocked at this unpatriotic profiteering, De St. Cyr informed Delon, who sent for a friend from Buenos Aires. Equipped with his foreign passport and $54,545 of Delon's money, the friend made the purchase. Delon handed the prize over to the Defense Minister Michel Debre, who presented it to De Gaulle's Order of the Liberation, founded to honor Resistance heroes.

Few of the tourists strolling among the Christmas trees on Washington's Ellipse near the White House seemed to recognize the elusive Tricia Nixon (dubbed "the Howard Hughes of the White House" by the mystified press) and her longtime beau, Edward Finch Cox. At least one who did spy Tricia, though, saw more than blonde hair and dimples: Tricia was wearing a diamond on the ring finger of her left hand. Would she announce her engagement to the son of New York Socialites Mr. and Mrs. Howard E. Cox over the holidays? Her mother Pat Nixon would only say, "I can't keep up with that girl."

Making the social scene in Paris, where she is enjoying all kinds of exotic thrills--such as Rothschilds, raw chestnuts, Vicomtesse Jacqueline de Ribes, and steak tartare--pretty Dewi Sukarno, 30, a widow of the late President of Indonesia, keeps her rather notable shape with judo. "It's very funny," says Dewi. "After each lesson I feel really beaten-up for a couple of days, and then I'm ready to go again." One advantage is that it can be practiced at home, unlike another of her favorite sports--horseback riding. But judo is not only for physical fitness, she notes sagely. "These days woman is so likely to be attacked that she ought to know how to defend herself."

From one point of view, the Christmas season adds up to a great big popularity contest: who gets the most Christmas cards, the most invitations, the most presents--and the most votes in the inevitable year-end polls. In one of the more obscure surveys, U.S. newspaper editors picked the man who they thought was the most admired in history. The winner was Jesus Christ (280 votes). Runners-up: Winston Churchill (175), Abraham Lincoln (151), Thomas Jefferson (72), George Washington (66). Also-rans: Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Mahatma Gandhi, William Shakespeare, Albert Schweitzer. Visitors to Madame Tussaud's waxworks in London voted Churchill the Hero of All Time, ahead of Jesus, John F. Kennedy, Admiral Nelson and Joan of Arc. As Most Hated and Feared, the waxwork freaks voted Hitler and Mao Tse-tung one and two. President Nixon ranked fourth. Three tied for fifth place--Prime Minister Edward Heath, Dracula and Vice President Spiro Agnew.

Fresh from his Washington get-together with President Nixon, Britain's Prime Minister Edward Heath caromed back to his home town of Broadstairs, Kent, whipped up a practiced baton and led the choir through its annual Christmas carol concert. The P.M. knows at least as much about conducting a choir as conducting a parliamentary majority; this is the 27th year he has presided over the caroling, and only his first at No. 10 Downing Street. "An improvement, on the whole," he said of the choristers. "Must be something to do with the change in climate." It was obvious that he did not have the weather in mind.

English Actor-Author Peter Bull, whose Teddy Bear Book has had considerable coterie success in Britain, was delighted to get an invitation to tea with Washington's grandest grande dame, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, 86, after whose father, President Teddy Roosevelt, the cuddly stuffed animals were named. Would she mind, he asked, if he brought along a couple of the bears? She would indeed, Bull was informed. "I may be an old crone," grumped Princess Alice, "but I'm not driveling enough to have tea with a Teddy bear." Then she dashed any hopes Author Bull may have had of mining her for new bear bits. "I never had a Teddy bear," she said.

Any re-enactment of the Pilgrims' landing at Plymouth Rock in December 1620 provides a speaker with a perfect opportunity to extol the sturdy example of that dauntless band of early settlers. On the 350th anniversary observance last week, the Rev. Billy Graham praised the faith of the founding fathers and warned: "Anything less than this will let us down and we will continue on the toboggan slide that will take us to the ash heaps of history." Alas, one of the modern-day Pilgrims thereupon took a pratfall into Plymouth Bay as he tried to step ashore.

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