«The habit does not make the monk... »

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...but sometimes it helps ! I read today a French article about « The weird double life of the king of Holland ». During 20 years the king has times to times piloted planes of the Dutch company KLM. He was not giving his name to passengers, but he was welcoming them with his pilot uniform, and during 20 years quite nobody recognized his face or his voice. Nobody was knowing that the king had a pilot’s license, and the secret has been kept until he decided to tell it to a newspaper a few days ago. It was probably more exciting than to be king in a democracy, which is a boring job if you think a bit about it. On the same register, I remember a young sub-prefect (a sub-prefect is the higher representant of the state in a French arrondissement) who had a rare hobby among high public servants : he was liking to travel on the roads and paths of his arrondissement on a bicycle. A morning, during a cold winter, he was riding his bicycle on a path near a river at about 20 km of his sub-prefecture, when an accident happened : the bicycle and the sub-prefect felt in the river. The river was deep and the banks quite high, but the sporty sub-prefect managed to get out of it, despite of his bicycle shoes, which are not the best shoes to climb a bank or even to walk. His bicyle was at the bottom of the river, his mobile phone dead, he was soaked, and his bicycle suit was muddy, but he was alive, and he walked, shivering from the cold, to the nearest village, where he started to ring at the doors, telling « I am the sub-prefect, I have had an accident, can I use your phone to ask to send my chauffeur to come and pick up me.» When the first person told him « If you are the sub-prefect, I am the president » and closed the door, he should have realized that it was not that easy to tell that you are a sub-prefect when you are wearing a wet and muddy bicycle suit. He finally found in a café a soul who did not believe him but has been sensitive enough to offer him a free phone call... Speaking of presidents, in 1920, Paul Deschanel, the 11th president of our IIIrd Republic has been more lucky. At this time, our presidents were travelling by train, and it seems that he was a sleepwalker. Elected in February 1920, he felt from his presidential wagon during a night in April, in the middle of nowhere. By luck, because of works on the track, the train was only running at 50 km/h ; he had several injuries, but nothing broken, and he followed the track up to a gatekeeper house where he knocked at the door, telling « I am the President, and I have fallen from my train ». As he was wearing only a night shirt and was barefoot, it was not obvious, but the gatekeeper and his wife opened their door and offered him a first aid. Later the gatekeeper told to the newspapers « I immediately saw that he was a 'Monsieur' : his feet were very clean. » The accident inspired a lot the journalists, caricaturists and songwriters of the time, and Deschanel offered to resign. It was refused by the Assembly, but he was forced to resign in September, because he was spending too much time in the gardens of the Elysee palace. It was a bit worrying to see a 65 years old French president and academician climbing at the chestnut trees and taking his baths in an outdoor basin with the ducks. Despite of these details about his private life reported by the media, he was still a very good speaker and writer after his train accident, and he managed to be elected 3 months later to the Senate in the first round of a local election. Your comments and anecdotes are welcomed.