In this close reading of the poem ‘Z La Manczy’ ( From La Mancha) by Jan Lechoń, written and published in exile in 1953, its historical and political contexts are examined in the light of the poet’s diaries. Lechoń, it seems, thought much of Charles de Gaulle and gave him, cast as a latter-day Quixote on horseback, a prominent place in the poem. This article explains and analyses the role of each of the historical and fictional characters (Don Quixote and Sancho Pansa, Joan d’Arc, the French kings and Napoleon) in the mythical structure of the poem and, last not least, addresses the issue of representing historical processes, politics and politicians in poetry.