He was never as monarchical, mysterious or intellectual as his predecessor and political rival, François Mitterrand. Mr. Chirac’s appeal was as a man of the soil who savored country life in Corrèze, a farming area in southwestern France where he and his wife, Bernadette, had a chateau. He enjoyed petting cows and tickling goats at France’s annual Salon de l’Agriculture. He was forgiven his taste for Mexican beer because he drank oceans of French wine as well.

From the time he was a young politician, Mr. Chirac was a tireless campaigner who drew energy from the “bain de foule” — the “crowd bath,” or mingling with the crowds. He treated his presidency as a never-ending campaign, frustrating his security guards, who didn’t seem to be able to rein him in.

In 2003, on the first state visit by a French president to Algeria since its independence from France, I saw how oblivious he was to security concerns. He plunged into the crowd along the corniche, zigzagging back and forth along the main boulevard to grab the hands of Algerians kept back by iron railings and a phalanx of blue-uniformed police officers in white gloves and spats.

The cries from the crowd were not “Vive la France!” or “Vive Chirac!” Rather, the word that was heard over and over as Mr. Chirac reached out to touch his former countrymen was, “Visa! Visa! Visa!” He didn’t seem to notice, or didn’t care.

He enjoyed playing the role of “grand séducteur” in both politics and his personal life. He confessed to a biographer and later in his runaway best-selling autobiography in 2009 that he had loved many women in his lifetime, “as discreetly as possible.” Bernadette Chirac confessed her jealousy in a 2001 book of interviews, “Conversation,” but stayed married for “familial traditions.”

She carved out a professional life of her own as a local official in Corrèze. She told me on the campaign trail for her re-election in 2004 that she ignored his remarks that she was getting too old for the job: “My husband literally said to me, ‘Isn’t this one time too many?’ I didn’t answer.”

As Mr. Chirac’s own time in office wound to an end, his legacy was tainted by a string of corruption charges. But an overwhelming majority of the French approved of his management of foreign affairs, particularly his role as the European leader who led the opposition to the Iraq War.