His ability earned him the nickname of Angel of the Mountains in the 1958 Tour de France, which he won with four stage victories.

As one writer put it, he had "a sad, timid look on his face, marked with an unfathomable melancholy [as though] an evil deity has forced him into a cursed profession amidst powerful, implacable riders.

"[5] Gaul worked in a butcher's shop and as a slaughterman in an abattoir at Bettembourg before turning professional on 3 May 1953[6] for Terrot,[3] at the age of 20.

He attacked again when the race reached the Pyrenees, winning stage 17 from (Toulouse to Saint-Gaudens) ahead of the eventual overall winner, Louison Bobet.

Third in that year's Giro, he started dominantly and won four stages, three of them time trials, including the ascent of Mont Ventoux.

His time of 1h 2m 9s from the Bédoin side, which in those days was cobbled in the first kilometres and poorly surfaced to the summit, stood as a record until Jonathan Vaughters beat it 41 years later in the Dauphiné Libéré.

[n 1] On the last day in the Alps, his manager, Jo Goldschmidt[n 2] looked at the rain falling and woke Gaul with the words: "Come on soldier...

Gaul woke delighted at the cold rain and angry at the memory of how he had been denied the Giro the previous year, when he was attacked as he stopped by the roadside.

A lot of riders took advantage of his halt but he most blamed Bobet, a man as refined and diffident as Gaul was coarse and brusque.

"[13] There was a prize of 100,00 francs at the top of the col de Lautaret in memory of the race's founder, Henri Desgrange.

At first the rest thought that Gaul had lost too much time earlier in the race to be a threat, that he was looking only at the best climber's prize.

Gaul took the lead and moved ahead as the race progressed through "a curtain of water, a deluge without an ark", as L'Équipe described it.

The caravan[n 3] dissolved from the moment it entered the sea of clouds that followed the pretty chalets of [the ski station of] Chamrousse.

He lost time in the heat of the Pyrenees but won the stage to Grenoble again, with the eventual overall winner Bahamontes second.

Guido Carlesi attacked as the Tour entered its final kilometre, overcoming a four-second deficit to Gaul.

Gaul was upset at a breach of race etiquette and still more annoyed to find himself referred to as Monsieur Pi-Pi, which in French rhymes with and means pee-pee.

At Saint-Gaudens, after his faithful teammate and roommate Marcel Ernzer had dropped out, he spoke of his lassitude, saying: "I'm scared in the peloton [...].

[12] He never recovered from the hurt of being whistled by the crowd when he made his last appearance on the road in the country, riding for a poor team, Lamote, sponsored by a Belgian brewery and achieving nothing.

[4] Unusual for a light man, he was also an accomplished time-trialist, in one Tour de France beating the world leader, Jacques Anquetil.

Gaul dominated the climbs of the late 1950s, spinning up the hills at amazing cadences, his legs a blur while his cherubic face hardly showed the strain of his exceptional performances.

"[15] He was at his best in cold and rain, winning the following year's race after a lone ride through the Alps in a day-long downpour described by the French newspaper, L'Équipe as "diluvian.

[8] Gaul was taciturn and spoke rarely to anyone but a circle including Anglade, Roger Hassenforder, Nencini and Bahamontes.

Roger St Pierre said: "With his boyish good looks and Jack the Giantkiller style, Charly Gaul was loved by the fans.

He had his friends, too – his faithful lieutenant Marcel Ernzer even rode an identical bike so that his master would not be uncomfortable if he had to borrow it after a crash or a puncture.

[n 6] But he was not always popular with his rivals, his unpredictable, schoolboyish temperament, his lazy riding on the flat and his sometimes insufferable ego winning him few allies in the bunch.

"[27] According to writer Jan Heine, many of his problems appeared to have been caused by a hostile peloton, which often seemed to do anything to make Gaul lose.

[12] His rare excursions were to buy everyday goods and shopkeepers who met him spoke of a man who was ill and depressed, that he hadn't recovered from separating from his second wife.

[31] The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg recognised Gaul's past and his return to society by offering him a job as archivist at the sports ministry.

Writing in The Guardian, William Fotheringham said Gaul "cut a curious figure – plump, shambling, confused – his eyes hidden behind thick spectacles above a wispy beard, a far cry from his heyday in the 1950s.

Goddet spoke of his dribbling during his record ride up Mont Ventoux: "Yes, it was without doubt the first time that I saw the soft and thin face of the Luxembourger, who never shows signs of suffering, running with the sweat of pain, the dribble of effort flooding his shaven chin and sticking to his chest in long dirty ropes.