See also: Saint-Exupéry

Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger of Saint-Exupéry , (June 29th 1900, Lyon - July 31st, 1944 disappeared in flight) was a writer and Aviateur French.

Its experiment of pioneer of aviation and fighter pilot will give him all legitimacy to deliver its principal message: It is by the going beyond of oneself that one becomes a Man .

He is usually called “Saint-Ex”.

Biography

Youth and formation

Wire of the Viscount Jean de Saint-Exupéry and Marie Boyer de Fonscolombe, Saint-Exupéry is born in 1900 in a family resulting from the French nobility. He shares a happy childhood between five brothers and sisters. But in 1904, his/her father dies suddenly of a brain hemorrhage, leaving Marie Saint-Exupéry only educate his 5 children (Marie-madeleine, known as “Hind”, Simone, known as “Monot”, Antoine, known as “Tonio”, François and Gabrielle, known as “Didi”). The children play much, make charades, assemble small plays, play of the music (piano and violin), Antoine and Didi draw and paint, Biche, Simone and Antoine write and write a small newspaper.

The mother of Saint-Exupéry saw this premature widowhood more or less well, her optimistic naturalness allows him to face her obligations. From a superficial sensitivity, it will weave bonds privileged with Antoine, and an excellent education will offer to him, by giving him best itself at every moment. She will transmit to her son adored values that Saint-Exupéry will preserve all his life: honesty, respect of others, not of social exclusiveness. It is an exceptional woman who devoted her life to her children, with a humanism that Saint-Exupéry will cultivate throughout his voyages.

Until the ten years age, it passes its childhood between the castle of the Mole (Var), property of his maternal grandmother and the castle of Saint-Maurice-with-Rémens (Ain), property of the one of his aunts. In 1909, its family settles with the Mans, area of origin of his/her father.

In 1912, Antoine spends summer holidays to Saint-Maurice-with-Rémens. It is fascinated by the new aerodrome of Ambérieu-in-Bugey, located at a few kilometers in the east. Antoine goes there to bicycle and remains there hours to question the mechanics on the operation of the planes. One day, he addresses himself to the pilot Gabriel Salvez by claiming that his/her mother authorized it to carry out a first flight. He thus makes his baptism on Bertaud-Wroblewski, plane manufactured with Villeurbanne by the Lyons industrialist Berthaud on plans of Pierre and Gabriel Wroblewski. It is the young person Gabriel, itself, which would have flown the plane. Enthusiastic, he writes a poem testifying to his new passion for the planes:

the wings quivered under the soufflé of the evening
the engine of its song rocked the deadened heart
the sun passed very close to us his pale color.

Saint-Exupéry passes thus almost all his childhood in the family castle, surrounded by his brothers and sisters. He will remember this period like that of the lost paradise, “the most beautiful moments of his life” will say he later. On the other hand, it is not liked much the college Holy-Cross of Mans where he is boarder. His/her comrades, who call it Tatane, collaborate however in the newspaper of class created to its initiative, which will be then prohibited by the Fathers.

With the return to school of 1915, Marie, who has just created an infirmary with Ambérieu-in-Bugey, anxious to protect her sons and to give them an education which enables them to develop their gifts (in June 1914 Antoine obtained the price of narration for one of its draftings), the registered voter in the Marist brothers of the Villa Midsummer's Day with Freiburg, in Switzerland. In close connection with the Stanislas College of Paris, this college developed a method of education modern which enables them to exert their creativity. Antoine finds there Louis de Bonnevie, whose family is close and friendly of his with Lyon. He will tie with him like with Marc Sabran and Charles Sallès, a major and durable friendship.

In 1917, it obtains its baccalaureat, but during the summer, a drama will make steal in glares this idyllic table. Suffering martyrdom because of articular evils, Francois, the younger brother, the playmate, dies of a Péricardite. It is a whole side of the life of Antoine who collapses. In one moment, it passes from the teenager to that of adult. Ten years later, the Tuberculose carries his/her sister Marie-madeleine.

The Guerre of 14-18 also inspires it, it carries out caricatures of boches and their helmets at a peak, of the emperor and Kronprinz. He writes also some poems:

Sometimes confusedly under a lunar ray,
a soldier is detached tilted on clear water;
It dreams with its love, it dreams at its twenty years!
Spring of war

In 1919, it fails the contest of the Naval college (its results in the scientific branches are very good, but those of the literary branches insufficient) and is registered as a non-registered student in the section structures with the École of the Art schools. His/her mother assistance as it can, but its money worries are important. Antoine profits then from the hospitality of his cousin Yvonne de Lestrange and also accepts several odd jobs: with his friend Henry de Ségogne, it will be in particular appearing during several weeks in Quo Vadis , an opera of Jean Noguès. In 1918, it became acquainted with Louise de Vilmorin, which inspires to him by the romantic poems.

I remember you as of a clear hearth
Close of which I lived hours, without anything saying
Pareil to the old tired hunters of the great outdoors
Which poke while their white dog breathes.
With my friend

However, during this period, its intense poetic activity inspires to him rather by the poems melancholic persons, of the sonnets and of the continuations of quatrains ( Veillée , 1921) but showing that he saw one difficult period because he finds himself without life plan and future prospect. Some of its poems are penmanships and enluminés of drawings to the Indian ink. He offers two of his books of poetry to his friend Jean Doat.

In aviation

In April 1921, it is affected for its military service as a mechanic with the 2nd regiment of aviation of Strasbourg. It takes courses of piloting to its expenses, but at the end of July, only with the orders of its training aircraft, it is posed accuracy whereas the apparatus is in flames. This serious incident makes it possible to reveal nevertheless its coolness and its control. Nevertheless, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry leaves the memory of a sometimes inattentive aviator, sometimes forgetting to return his landing gear, sometimes to connect his instruments, losing itself in the vastness of the sky. The nickname of “Spade the Moon” thus remained to him, not only because of its turned-up nose but also of an unquestionable tendency to fold up itself in its interior world. Beginning August 1921, it is affected with the 37e regiment of aviation to Casablanca. It is there that it obtains its civil patent. During its leisures, he excels carrying out sketches of his buddies of barrack room with the pencil coal mine and turquoise ink. Its drawings are gathered in its book the Buddies . In 1924, it begins a work in prose, undoubtedly Manon, dancer . In 1925, its poem entitled the Moon watch an eccentric inspiration. One can also quote the poetic continuation the Good-bye :
It is midnight - I walk
And is I hesitate scandalized
Which this pale chimpanzee
Which dances in this fountain?
the Moon, 1925

In January 1922, it is with Istres as raises reserve officer. It is received pilot soldier and is promoted corporal. In October, second lieutenant of reserve, it chooses its assignment with the 34e regiment of aviation, with the Le Bourget. In spring 1923, it has its first air crash to the Le Bourget: fracture of the skull. After this serious accident, it is demobilized. However, Saint-Exupéry always plans to enter the Air force, like encourages the Barès general there. But the family of Louise de Vilmorin, its been engaged, opposes it. Start for him one long period of trouble: It is found in an office as controller of manufacture to the Counter of Tilery, a subsidiary company of the General society of Company. In September, it is the rupture of engagement to Louise. In 1924, Saint-Ex works in the Allier and the Creuse as representing Usine To smoke it which manufactures trucks (it will sell of them one in one year and half!). It is one sad enough time for him which is comforted while flying as often as possible.

In 1926 it is engaged by Didier Daurat, director production of the lines of the company Latécoère (future Aéropostale) and is joined the airport of Toulouse-Montaudran, to initially accomplish transport of mail on flights between Toulouse and Dakar (Senegal) whereas it wrote its first book, the Aviator which it publishes in the review of Adrienne Monnier, the money Ship where his/her friend Jean Prévost works. With Toulouse, it becomes acquainted with Jean Mermoz and Henri Guillaumet. At the end of two months, it is in charge of its first convoying of mail on Alicante, it enters henceforth the legend of the Air-mail one.

End 1927, it is named chief of stopover to Cape Juby with the Morocco with for mission of improving the relations of the company with the dissidents Moors on the one hand and the Spaniards on the other hand. It will discover the extreme loneliness of the desert there, after an emergency landing it meets a community of monks Trappists; he reports this experiment in Ground of the men : Wind, sand and stars. Austere life of the Trappists. But on this badly lit tablecloth, six or seven men, who did not have anything in the world except their memories, shared an invisible richness . In 1929, it publishes at Gallimard its first novel southern Courrier in which it tells its own life and its own emotions of pilot.

In September 1929, it joined Mermoz and Guillaumet in South America to contribute to the development of the Aéropostale until in Patagonie. In 1930, it uses the library of his/her friend Paul Dony, to make various sonnets inspired of other poets but who are as many exercises of poetic virtuosity. In 1931, it publishes its second novel Night flight , an immense success, in which it evokes its years in Argentine and the development of the lines towards the Patagonie. In 1931, always, it Marie with Agay with Consuelo Suncin Sandoval de Gómez (deceased in 1979), at the same time écrivaine and artist El Salvador ienne. Starting from 1932, whereas the company, mined by the policy, does not survive its integration in Air France, there remains with difficulty, being devoted to the writing and journalism. Saint-Exupéry remains test pilot and pilot of raid at the same time as he becomes journalist of occasion for great reports.

To defer for Paris-Evening , he travels to the Vietnam in 1934 and to Moscow in 1935. In December 1935, Saint-Ex tries a raid Paris Saigon, but is obliged to pose in catastrophe his plane, a Caudron Simoun, in the desert of the Libya. He leaves for Spain in 1936. Of all these voyages, it accumulates a very important sum of memories, emotions and experiments, which are used to him to nourish its reflection on the direction to be given to the human condition. Its reflection leads to the writing of Ground of the men which is published in 1939, written in a splendid prose, the work is rewarded by the price for the French Academy. It is in this novel that one finds celebrates it sentence: What I did, I swear you, never no animal would not have done it .

War of 39-45

In 1939, it is briefly reinstated in the air force where it carries out air recognition. May 23rd, 1940, it flies over Arras whereas the German Panzer S invade the city. Then it leaves the France for New York with for objective making enter in war the Americans. Catalogued as petainist by the ones, gaullist by the others, it has evil to make hear his voice; in fact all at the beginning, like much of French, it was rather favorable to Vichy, which seemed to him to represent the continuity of the State, and was thus rather being wary towards the general de Gaulle. In fact it especially tried to reconcile the opposite factions; at the time of its radiophonic call of November 29th, 1942 from New York, it launches: French, reconcile we to be useful , but it was misunderstood, because it was too late and time was that of the general confrontation. However, according to recently open American files it would seem that the American secret services would have planned the assumption to push it instead of the de Gaulle general.

End 1942, it leaves for Quebec, but it only thinks of engaging in the action, considering, as it was the case with the Aéropostale, than only those which take part in the events are legitimate to testify some. In April 1943, the commander of Saint-Exupéry takes again active service in allied aviation in Tunisia. He carries out some reconnaissance missions, but is victim of several incidents, which make it put “in reserve command”, being given his age, his bad general health condition, his various preceding crash landings. He remains then in Algérie, with the Morocco, then in Algeria again, where he obtains in spring 1944 the authorization of the commander-in-chief of the air forces in the Mediterranean, the American general Eaker, to join prestigious group 2/33 based with Alghero, in Sardinia. He accomplishes several flights, enamelled breakdowns and incidents. July 17th, 1944, the 2/33 settles with Borgo, not far from Bastia, in Corsica. It is airport close to Poretta that Saint-Ex takes off with the orders of his F-5B-1-LO, photo version of the twin-engine P-38 Lightning, on July 31st, 1944 with 8:25 of the morning, for a mission of cartography (course on the Vallée of the Rhone, course on Annecy and return by the Provence): photographic recognitions in order to trace precise charts of the countries, extremely useful for the nearest whole Unloading in Provence (envisaged for on August 15th, 1944). It is alone on board, its plane is not armed and carries with him fuel for six hours of vol. To 8:30, is announced the last echo radar. Its plane would have been crushed with some encablures of the coasts of Provence. It is then impossible to carry out research on the ground in time of war, Saint-Ex officially is reported missing. Its memory is celebrated solemnly in Strasbourg on July 31st, 1945 and in 1948, it is recognized “Mort for France”.

The mystery of its death

The March 12th 1950 with the Official journal , ordering it Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is quoted with the order of the air army on a purely posthumous basis, to have “ proven, in 1940 as in 1943, its passion to be useful and its faith in the destiny of the fatherland ”, and “ found a death glorious, the 31 July 1944, with the return of a remote reconnaissance mission on its country occupied by the enemy ”.

If death were not from now on any more a doubt, remained to elucidate the circumstances of them. In 1950, Pasteur of Aachen, former officer of information in the Luftwaffe, will testify to have learned, the 31 July 1944, that a P-38 Lightning had been cut down in the Mediterranean by German Focke-Wulf. Then, in 1972, emerges the testimony (posthumous) of a certain Heichele candidate, who would have made fire on Lightning since his apparatus, about midday, above Castellane. But Heichele was in its turn shot down in strange August 1944… Bien, also, this very late testimony (in the years 1990), in connection with one living of Carqueiranne which would have seen, the fateful day, Lightning to be made cut down. The sea would have then rejected the body of a soldier on the beach, which was buried anonymously in the cemetery of the commune. Was this Saint-Exupéry? For the knowledge, it would be necessary to exhume the body, to proceed to comparisons with DNA of the members of its family, which are there opposite. Each time, these “revelations” started again the interest as well specialists as general public, for the “Saint-Ex mystery”. (It even had impassioned there one Alsatian which tried to prove that the writer aviator had not disappeared in the Mediterranean, but that its apparatus had been crashé in the Alps!) Lastly, in 2000, of the pieces of its apparatus, the landing gear, a piece of propeller, elements of fuselage and especially of the frame, are found in the Mediterranean off Marseilles. (Before a fisherman had found its gourmette in its trawl.) Gone up on the surface in September 2003, they are formally identified on April 7th, 2004 thanks to its serial number. (From now on the remainders of Lightning are exposed to the Museum of the air and the space of Le Bourget, in a space devoted to the writer aviator.) But nothing makes it possible to give a final decision on the circumstances of its death, in spite of the data-processing simulation of the accident - starting from the parts deformed - which shows piqué, almost with the vertical and high speed, in water… Was the consequence of one énième breakdown technical, a faintness of the pilot? Some even advanced, with the great scandal of its close relations, the assumption of the suicide of physically decreased Saint-Exupéry, despaired by the world which he saw to announce, thesis consolidated by some of its last writings, with the frankly pessimistic tone… (Like the last lines of a letter addressed to Pierre Dalloz, written its death day before: “If I am descended, I will not regret absolutely anything. The termitière future me terror. And I hate their virtue of robots. Me, I was made to be a gardener. ”)

Its work

If it is not completely autobiographical, its work is largely inspired by its life of air-mail pilot, except for the Small Prince (1943) - undoubtedly his most popular success (he was sold since with more than 80 million specimens in the world) - which is rather a poetic and philosophical tale.

He wrote others of them, quite as known. One could quote Southern Courrier (1929), Night flight (1931), Ground of the men (1939), Fighter pilot (1942), Lettre with an hostage (1944), Écrits war (gathered in 1982), and Citadelle (posthumous, 1948). All its novels told the history of its voyages while returning them fiction and while creating imagination.

the Aviator

Published in 1926. The first published text of Saint-Exupéry, fragment seems it of a vaster unit, and which will be used as material for southern Courrier .

southern Mail

Published in 1929. Through the character of " Jacques Bernis" , Saint-Ex tells his own life and his own emotions of pilot. Louise de Vilmorin is camped in the character of " Geneviève".

Night flight

Published in December 1931. This work which reaches with the examination of the tragedy, is prefaced by his/her friend André Gide, was worth the Prix Femina in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and devoted it like Man of letters. This work was an immense success and knew multiple translations. Its film adaptation was even sold with Hollywood.

the main character, " Rivière" , is inspired by its chief Didier Daurat. It gives life to a chief who can push his men at the end of themselves for the realization of their mission: the mail must pass to cough price, the mission exceeds in value the human life. The values which the novel vehicle are: primacy of the mission, importance of the duty and responsibility for the task to be achieved until the sacrifice.

Ground of the men

Published in December 1939. It obtains the Grand Prix of the novel of the French Academy.
It is a succession of accounts, testimonys and meditations starting from the sum of experiments, emotions and memories which it accumulated at the time of its many voyages. It is also a homage to the friendship and its friends Mermoz and Guillaumet and more largely a romantic vision on the nobility of humanism.

Fighter pilot

Published in 1942.

Letter with an hostage

Published in 1944.

the Small Prince

Published in 1943 with New York (in 1945 in France), written in Eaton' S Neck (Northport, the USA). For technical reasons, the “watercolours of the author” reproduced in the French versions which followed were only retramages of the American edition, which induced a significant loss of quality. Moreover, certain drawings had been modified in a minor way. The Folio edition appeared recently was apparently the first required illustrations in conformity with the original edition, of much better technical quality and artistic in spite of a more reduced format (techniques of impression they having also made progress since 1943).

Citadel

Published in 1948. Started in 1936, this work was not completed by Saint-Exupéry. Published in a first version in 1948 starting from a typed text, it did not comprise the entirety of the thought of the author. The totality of the manuscripts was availability of the editors in 1958 and made it possible to better marry its intentions.

“Citadel is not a completed work. In the thought of the author it was to be pruned and altered according to a rigorous plan which, in the actual position, is reconstituted with difficulty. The author often took again the same topics, either to express them with more precision, or to light them of one of his images of which it has the secrecy” (Simone de Saint-Exupéry).

Letters of youth (1923 - 1931)

Published in 1953. New edition in 1976 under the title " Letters of youth to the friend inventée".

Notebooks

Published in 1953. Integral edition in 1975. Together of notes held of 1935 with 1940 on a diary and five notebooks. Very eclectic, it reflects the interests and curiosities of the writer for sciences, the religion, the literature and gives place to reflections and relevant aphorisms.

Letters with his/her mother

Published in 1955. Collection of the correspondence of Saint-Exupéry with his mother covering the period 1910 - 1944.

Written war (1939 - 1944)

Published in 1982. This posthumous collection is prefaced by Raymond Aron.

Manon, dancer

Published in 2007. Short novel completed in 1925. It is the history of love between a “hen”, Manon, and a forty year old man “serious”, sad, which seeks a direction with its life. As of their meeting, between them an love affair, the man tenderly protecting is tied his “poor little girl”, whom he believes dancer. They make love without passion. Leave on a journey by car. But he learns one day by three from his customers that Manon is in fact a prostitute. They break then are re-examined. Manon is thrown under the wheels of a truck and misses dying. She will remain lame…

Writings of circumstances

Anecdotes

  • Attracted by elsewhere, the distance, the adventure, it sought since childhood to escape the terminals from its aristocratic medium. It had multiplied the challenges, like the Aviation, had cultivated the friendships most improbable - his/her best friend, Leon Werth, was Communiste -, and tempted to tame wild animals: Fox of sands, Gazelle, chameleon, baby Seal, Puma, Lion ceau, which it sometimes embarked on his aircraft, to the great displeasure of his mechanics - one of them will finish at the hospital, after the episode of the lion cub.

  • very average Elève, Saint-Exupéry fails the examination of entry of the Naval college, and it is by spite that it will make his military service in the Aviation!

  • distracted Pilot, it was called Pique the Moon by the mechanics.

  • He was also a scientist: he holds nearly ten technical patents, and also developed of many mathematical problems, of which the problem of the Pharaon published in his return of Egypt.

  • During the emission of the ticket of 50 frank French with the effigy of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the Banque de France had made a shell by printing the name “Antoine of Saint E xupéry” on the ticket. (The ticket of 50 F fault.)

  • Orson Welles had bought the rights of the Petit Prince and had proposed with Walt Disney to adapt it in animation. After readhaving read it, Disney said that there was no place for two geniuses in the company.

  • a pearl of often quoted pupil was he is “When Saint-Exupéry canonized? ”

Universally recognized

Its birthplace of Lyon, in homage to the writer and wink with the pioneer of air-mail, renamed the airport of Satolas in International airport Lyon Saint-Exupéry and TGV Lyon-Saint-Exupéry parks it.

On the walls of the the Pantheon of Paris, an inscription honors its memory in these terms:

With the memory of Antoine of Saint Exupéry,
poet, novelist and aviator
missing during a mission
of air recognition
July 31st, 1944.

Its name was still given to:

It was represented by various sculptors:

  • a statue of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and small prince, work of Christiane Guillaubet, is exposed on the Bellecour place with Lyon (see above).
  • There exists a statue of him with Toulouse.
  • a bust of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, works of Madeleine de Tazenas, painter of the air, is exposed to the Santiago-of-Chile public garden in Paris.
  • a statue of the small prince was inaugurated on Saturday, September 16 2006 with Northport (the United States), the village or Saint-Ex wrote in 1942-1943 in the house Bevin House of the district Eaton' S Neck the book the Small Prince . It is a work of Winifred S. DeWitt Gantz. The statue is in the court of the public library of Northport, 151 Laurel Avenue NY 11768.

  • a plate with the n° 15, place Vauban with Paris indicates:

Here of 1934 to 1940
lived Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

  • On a place of Agay, where his/her Gabrielle sister lived, a fountain is dedicated to the small prince.

  • the currency of Paris struck a clipboard, a medal, a bracelet and melted a statuette of 22 cm to the effigy of the small prince.

Quotations

  • There is only one problem, one all over the world. To return to the men a spiritual significance, spiritual concerns (…). If I return living of this job necessary and ungrateful, it will pose for me only one problem: what can one, which is necessary it to say to the men?
  • The size of a trade is, perhaps, above all, to link men: it is only one true luxury, and it is that of the human relations , in Ground of the men .
  • The physical drama itself can touch us only if one shows us its feel spiritual , in Fighter pilot .
  • Your pyramid does not have a direction if it is not completed as a God. Because that one is spread on the men after having transfigured them in Citadel .
  • A smile is often essence. One is paid by a smile. One is rewarded by a smile , in Letter with an hostage .
  • To like, it is not to look at one the other, it is to look at together in the same direction , in Ground of the men .
  • See you in the life, it does not have there solutions. There are forces moving: they should be created, and the solutions follow them , in Night flight .
  • If you differ from me, my brother, far from me to injure, you me nouveau riches , in Citadel .
  • The children alone know what they seek , in the Small Prince .
  • It is necessary for oneself, to exist, of realities which last , in southern Mail .
  • All the large people initially were of the children, but little of them remember it , in the Small Prince .
  • To know, it is not to show, nor to explain. It is to reach the vision , in Fighter pilot .
  • To be man, it is precisely to be responsible. It is to feel, by posing its stone, which one contributes to build the world , in Ground of the men .
  • The war is not an adventure. The war is a disease. Like typhus , in Fighter pilot .
  • One does not see well that with the heart. Essence is invisible for the eyes , in the Small Prince .
  • The truth, it is not what is shown, it is what simplifies. , in Ground of the men

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