"Where
do I come from? I come from my
childhood…" 
Nineteen hundred. The expectations
of a new century, intact, yet to be given shape, rose
together with the curtain of a new life. What would
become of this century? What would be become of this
child born with the century? Maybe someone put anxiously
that question to Mr. and Mrs. de Saint-Exupéry on that
29th of June 1900 in Lyon. Antoine had just entered
History.
"It is by chance that I was born in
Lyon" , Antoine would say later. It was true in a
certain sense. His mother was born in Provence, his
father in Limousin. Chance had brought them together in
Lyon, where he used to work as a insurance broker. His
father belonged to an old aristocratic family, and he
kept still his count title and prestige of a name
thought to go as far back as the fifth century.
Antoine knew his father only through
photos. In fact, Jean de Saint-Exupéry died in 1904,
leaving behind a widow and five sons of short age. The
oldest was seven, the youngest one.
Antoine’s mother, bending under
sorrow and difficulties, takes the decision to join her
aunt, Madame de Tricaud, who has a castle in
Saint-Maurice de Rémens.
There, in a fairy tale like
atmosphere, Antoine spends the happiest days of his
life. The old castle is surrounded by a huge park full
with trees, and his luxuriant fantasy makes an enchanted
castle out of it. Games without end in the park. On
rainy days the children lose themselves in the long
alleyways looking for the treasures.
At that time everybody fancies
calling him Antoine "the King Sun": King, because he
reigns over this marvelous world; Sun, because his
blond, golden hair reminds them of the sun.
Saint-Maurice de Remens means sweet
years spend next to a loving and understanding mother
who entertains her children with fairy tales and piano
playing. It means, too, Paula, the Austrian tutoress,
whom Antoine remembers, as a grown-up with tenderness:"
My oldest recollections? I had a tutoress from Tirol,
her name was Paula. But this is not a recollection. She
was already a legend when I was five years old, in the
entrance hall…"
She is above all the symbol of the
old stove which used to heat Antoine’s room, and watch
his sleep over at night. The memory of this stove will
remain engraved in his mind: "The best thing, the most
placid, and the friendliest which I have ever known is
the little stove from upstairs in Saint-Maurice. Nothing
else ever in my existence made me feel so secure. I woke
up at night to listen to its humming top like noise and
watch its agile shadows on the wall. I do not know why,
but it made me think of a faithful water spaniel. The
stove protected us against everything… Never ever have I
had a friend like that stove." (Letter to his mother.
Buenos Aires 1939)
Five years have gone by. Antoine is
just nine. Madame de Saint-Exupéry decides to leave
Saint-Maurice and settle down anew in Le Mans with her
sons. There they will receive a good education. Antoine
and Francois go to Our Lady of the Holy Cross's school.
Antoine is not what one might call an industrious
student. His fellow student Gauthier says of him: "He
was a boy with a round face and a nose shaped like a
stew-pot's leg, and who smiled with an intractable air
about him. His hair was disorderly and he wore his
collar and neck-tie in a crooked way, in short, he was
the inattentive student who, like many others, had his
fingers full with ink."
Disorderly about himself, but, above
all, disorderly about his things. Punishements are now
abundant. Antoine discovers discipline and experiences
the first sorrows. Luckily he finds in his mother an
'"almighty" support. As a grown-up he will remember that
sweet and sour time: "When I was a young boy l used to
cry on the way back from school with my rucksack on my
back, because I had been punished (remember Le Mans?),
but a single kiss was enough to make me forget
everything. You were an almighty support against
supervisors and prefects. I felt secure in your home..."
(Letter to his mother, Buenos Aires 1939.)
Undoubtedly Madame de Saint-Exupéry
had a great influence on her sons and on Antoine in
particular. She was an exceptional human being,
singularly gifted for painting, writing and music. She
iniciated her children, as from earliest age, to the
contemplation of a picture, to the reading of a good
book, to the understanding of a beautiful melody through
body and soul... It can be said that Antoine's childhood
turned around two poles: Saint-Maurice de Rémens and his
mother.
An
unsettled youth 

Antoine is on the difficult step
from childhood to youth when the first world war sets
in. It is the start of a period of instability which has
its repercussions on Antoine's personality, yet to be
given shape, and on his studies too.
Madame de Saint-Exupery works as a
sister at Amberieux's hospital and sends Francois and
Antoine to a Jesuits' school in Villefranche. They do
not succeed in adapting themselves to the strict
discipline, and three month's later join the school of
Saint John in Fribourg, Switzerland. The balance of the
three months at the Jesuits is rather negative: a new
nickname, "Pique Ia lune", a cruel allusion to a
turned-up nose... The name Antoine was out of fashion.
The new atmosphere and peaceful
surroundings in Fribourg do not contribute to give a new
impulse to Antoine's studying. Now, more than ever, he
indulges in reveries and dedicates the whole of his time
to reading and writing poetry: "At the age of sixteen",
he would say later, "I discovered the poets; it goes
without saying that I was convinced that I was a poet,
too, and for two years I wrote poetry, proudly, like all
other youths".
But soon Antoine has to go back to
reality... a harsh reality. His brother Francois who
suffers from heart rheumatism, dies in July. The death
of his brother impresses him very deeply. But life
continues... he takes several higher level examinations,
prior to University, and is successful in 1917.
The
difficult years 

The moment to take a decision has
come. He prepares himself for a competitive examination
in order to be admitted to the Naval School. In two
years of studies at the Bossuet School. But he goes on
indulging in reveries, also he is little inclined to
obey the square structures of discipline two years
become three and he fails the final examination, prior
to admission to the School. Nevertheless, during this
span of time, his ideas have ripened gradually and his
interest for astrology and literature has grown bigger.
His friends are amazed at his way of life, but, in a
certain sense, they envy him: "What a guy! - recalls
Renee de Saussine, closely acquainted with Antoine-, he
lives on coffee only, so that he can buy himself a
sextant. He writes short stories during his studies. One
day he will be famous". Nevertheless, he is still as shy
and untractable as before. Henri de Ségogne, who studied
with him, makes the following description: "A shy youth,
wild, inclined to sudden changes of mood, at one time
full of energy and life, at another, taciturn, shut up
seemingly in anger, all of it a clue to his musing
activity. He was little sociable, and that made him
suffer, because he wanted to be loved."
So then, three years of studying did
not lead him anywhere real... Antoine felt that there
were no chances of joining the Naval School, and all his
illusions faded away at once. Moreover, fate turned
against him... gone over the age limit.
Then he registered at the School of
Art, Department of Arquitecture. This is the time when
he used to go out in a group. This is the time of the
long talks in the cafes of the Latin Quarter, but also
of insoluble money problems. This is the time when he
used to live in a tiny room in the Louisiana Hotel and,
in short, the time of unexciting humdrum. Although he
liked drawing, Antoine was not satisfied with the
studies he had just undertaken and when, at last, on the
2nd of April 1921, he was called up for military service
in the Second Regiment of the Aircraft Forces -he
himself had made all efforts to join the soonest
possible-, Antoine thought relieved that this time he
had indeed found his true way: aviation.
"
You shall see when I take off on my
plane..." 

His interest in aircrafts soon
changed into passion, a passion which he had in him for
several years. It all started in Saint-Maurice de Rémens
during a summer holiday. Near the castle there was an
aircraft field which he subrepticiously used to approach
in order to watch the comings and goings of pilots and
mechanics. Antoine quickly became fond of all these
people, completely dedicated to make perfect this
newly-born means of transport. From the beginning he
liked the atmosphere of comradeship' and brotherhood
which reigned among them. Soon they became acquinted
with each other and one day a miracle happened: a well
known pilot, Vedrines, puzzled by the eagerness of the
young boy, suggested an excursion by plane. That very
day of the year 1912 Antoine gave shape to the emotions
he had felt during his first trip in the air. Only these
three verses remain:
"Les ailes frémissaient sous le souffle
du soir
Le chant de son moteur me berçait
Je me suis endormi
Le soleil nous frôlait de sa couleur polie."
Antoine had just discovered that he
too, had the soul of a pilot. He changed his bicycle
into an airplane by fitting to it two wings he had made
out of a bedsheet, and after taking seat on his machine
he exclaimed proudly: "You shall see when I take off on
my plane. The crowd will shout: Hurrah Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry!"
Many years went by. Antoine was about
to be twenty-one when the Second Regiment of the
Aircraft Forces in Strasbourg called him up to military
service.
Soon he was disillusioned: they did
not admit him among the flying personnel; instead he was
assigned to the landing services as an assistant. His
desire to fly was not going to be fulfilled this time
either. Antoine felt down and, as usual, he disclosed
his grief to his mother: "At night I feel a little
sadness. You ought to come here, to Strasbourg, some
day. I am somewhat choking in this atmosphere. I have no
prospects. I need to occupy myself with something that I
like." (Letter to his mother, Strasbourg 1921.)
But now he had found his way and had
made the decision to be successful by all means: "Mum"
he goes on, "if you only knew how irresistible is my
desire to fly! if I do not attain my aim, I shall be
very unhappy.., but I shall attain it."
And he was successful. He took
private coaching from a civil monitor, and a few months
later he had a civil pilot's diploma. That had not been
easy at alt The coaching was expensive and the money
from the grant was not enough. So he had to resort all
the time to his mother's generosity. This explains why
his being impatient, which almost cost him his life and
which made Commander Garde utter the sentence:
"Saint-Exupéry, you shall never kill yourself in an
airplane accident, otherwise you would have done so
already."
As Antoine wants to become a military
pilot, he is sent to Rabat where he will undergo the
necessary instruction. Six months later he obtains the
diploma, and with it the rank of second lieutenant. His
destination is the 33rd Aircraft Regiment at Le Bourget
in Paris.
But Antoine is not favored by
fortune's privileges. When everything seemed to be going
well -his profession, his girl friend, good prospects-,
a new accident interrupts his bliss. His future
stepfather asks him to resign. Again he is without a job
and morally very affected.
Long embittered
months 

Shortly after recovering from his
broken bones, he finds a job as supervisor in a tile
factory. But Antoine is not made for counting tiles. He
feels that he is a prisoner of figures... endless
columns of figures like prison bars, and a prisoner of
his four-walled office.
"What a pitiful object I must be...
But I do not have a single friend who might show
sympathy towards me... Chum, my situation is despicable.
I yawn in an office of two meters long by two meters
wide and look out of the window at the rain falling on
the court-yard. I also make sums. And I sort out files,
too, as told... Life is very sad. I should like to
change office. I have been doing the same thing too long
a time. I am the most dispirited guy in the world. "
(Paris 1923)
His life is divided between the
office and the unpretending guest-house where he lives.
"Life is sad in this shabby little hotel in the Ornano
boulevard, 70 his... Is not very funny." (Letter to his
mother, Paris 1923.)
One of his sources of joy is the
airplane. During his free time he pilots an airplane.
When his finances allow him to... Then his enthusiasm
has no limits: "...On Sunday I went for a spin on an
airplane. I had a good flight. Mum, I adore this
occupation. You cannot imagine the calm-ness and
solitude one finds at 4.000 meters of altitude, alone
with the engine." (Letter to his mother, Paris 1923.)
Aside from the airplane, friends are
also a good part of his life during that period of
depression. Often he is invited to parties. Also he goes
out in a group to the theatre, for a drink... Antoine
feels that he is understood and supported: "Mum, I have
a new joy in my life. I have the best friends you can
imagine. At the moment they go through an epidemic of
liking me. (Letter to his mother, Paris 1924.)
But since his girlfriend suddenly
left him -some thought that her family did not like him,
others thought that he preferred airplanes to her-, he
has more supply of love than ever, and marriage seems to
him the ideal solution: "...I feel like getting married,
not very much though... but I do not know whom to.
Moreover l have provisions of fatherly love. I should
like to have lots of little Antoines..." (Letter to his
mother, Paris 1924.)
At the end of 1924 he changes job. He
becomes a representative of Saurer lorrys. He is in
charge of three departments, and spends his time
travelling all over the place. But he does not excel
either in his new job: in fifteen months he only manages
to sell one single lorry.
But Paris continues to be his
headquarters more than ever, and, in Paris, the house of
a distant relative, Ivonne de Lestranges, a learned lady
who entertains in her saloons well known writers like
Gide, Gallimard, later Antoine's publisher... and there
Antoine happens to meet Jean Prevost, secretary of the
magazine "Navire d'argent", who suggests to the
possibility of writing something. One day, Antoine
timidly hands him a few pages that he has written during
his free time, following his advice. The response is
neither a letter nor a few words, but the publishing oft
few pages in that magazine, in the April number of 1926.
It is his short story. The Pilot surprises all and
everyone that surround him have known him for a long
time. The Pilot is through and through autobiographical.
It tells the story of a flying monitor who, like
Antoine, has depressions whenever he leaves his
airplane. It is an interesting story as the airplane is
the central character of it. Until then the -been
unedited. The Pilot is like a revelation to
Saint-Exupéry... flies he shall be able to write.
The success of his first literary
composition coincides with his the airline company
Latecoere.
"Saint-Ex",
civil pilot 

Father Sudour, former teacher at the
Bossuet school, liked Antoine verv much, and so he
recommended him to Beppo de Massimi, manager of the
airline company Latdcoe're, born out of a project, both
ambitious -bring into being a commercial company able to
cross the seas-and social -make contacts easier between
nations-. It was the result of the willpower of three
men: Massimi, Didier Daurat, two experienced pilots, and
Pierre Latecoere, engineer and aircraft builder in his
own factory. In 1919 took place the first civil flight
between Toulouse and Rabat. Nothing could stop them
toward the goal that they had set themselves... to reach
Dakar and afterwards South America, covering a total
distance of 12.400 kilometres.
When Sain-Exupéry first meets Beppo
de Massimi, in 1926, civil flights have increased and
they reach Dakar already. Flying conditions are still
very tough, so that the pilots are required to be very
much aware of their duty and responsibility. In fact,
the flights have to be operated daily, all the time.
Nothing should stop a pilot.
Saint-Exupéry is prepared to do
anything in order to be able to fly, and so he applies
for a post as a pilot. Soon after he is ordered to
present himself to Didier Daurat in Toulouse, Chief
Manager of the Civil airlines Toulouse-Dakar. From this
interview Daurat kept the memory of " a man with a
mellow voice, unassuming air about him and an earnest
face. As the conversation went on and became more
lively, his replies to my questions revealed a young man
gifted with a true pilot's nature, and also with that of
an inventor of fertile imagination".
Saint-Exupéry had just been
successful on the acid test. Indeed, Daurat was larger
than life. Everybody feared him, from the humblest
mechanic to the oldest pilot. Also his task was a
difficult one: to attend to the good running of the
airline. He was severe with himself and with others. He
could not accept the slightest mistake or weakness of
the mechanics or the pilots. He was known as an
insentive and unyielding man. As a matter of fact
Swnt-Exupéry took his inspiration from Daurat in order
to give shape, later, to the main character in Night
Flight.
The first thing Daurat did with
Saint-Exupery was to send him for a to the repair
workshops. It was like an entrance examination which
Daurat imposed on every one who wanted to join his
factory... "in order to take off them the mask of pride
that they wear". Many a one took it as punishment and
left after a few days. Of course, it was not Daurat's
job. He only wanted them to be aware of the requirements
of the They all, mechanics and pilots, worked for the
same cause and needed each other.
From the very first moment he was
enthusiastic about the atmosphere comradeship which
existed among them. After a few months he was allowed to
undergo a pilot's rest. Everything went all right. A few
days later he took off on his first mail flight:
Toulouse-Rabat. Later he was assigned to the
Dakar-Casablanca area.
At last Saint-Exupéry felt himself
fulfiilled. From Dakar, in 1926, he wrote to his mother:
"I am all right and I am happy." (Letter to his mother,
Dakar 1926.)
Each take-off was like a new
adventure. How would the airplane react this time? What
was the weather going to be like, up there? Aircrafts
were quite different from the ones Saint-Exupéry had
known a few years earlier.
The matter of the fact is that he
realized that the danger was greater than originally
thought, when he had to fly from Dakar to Casablanca
2.765 kilometers across African territory, where
dissident tribes watched the sky, ready to open fire on
any plane in sight. The danger existed also of having an
accident in the desert, and so be caught by the rebels
and have his throat cut.
Saint-Exupéry, or "Saint-Ex" for his
team friends, had been civil pilot for a year when
Didier Daurat decided to appoint him chief director of
the airplace in Cape Juby. It was on the 19 of October
1927.
Eighteen
months in the silence of the desert 

Cape Juby was right in the middle of
the dissident zone, in Rio de Oro, a stopping-place
between Casablanca and Dakar which belonged to the
Spaniards. They had built a fortress where the governor,
Colonel de Ia Pefla, lived permanently with a battalion
of soldiers and some officers. From time to time they
would go out on inspection in the Sahara. They did not
want the French pilots to have a landing base in Cape
Juby, though they allowed the pilots to land in order to
fill the tanks. if a pilot happened to fall, with the
aircraft, in the dissident zone, he knew that he could
not expect any help from the Spaniards, who had been
ordered not to intervene by the Madrid government.
Under such conditions, Didier Daurat
took the decision to send someone to Cape Juby, someone
able to rescue the pilots fallen in the desert in order
to ease the good running of the mail fligh ts. Several
pilots had had their throats cut. Therefore, Daurat was
in need of a man able to use tact and diplomacy on
Colonel de Ia Pefla, and obtain permission from him for
the setting up of an airfield. At the same time, he had
to be a brave man, on stand by day and night, ready to
fly out on rescue of any aircraft fallen in the desert.
Nobody seemed more appropriate for this mission than
Saint-Exupéry.
And here is Antoine, surrounded by a
fence of barbed wire, the sea on one side and the desert
on the other. Later he shall complain to his mother
about this feeling of seclusion: "What a life... like a
monk, in Africa's most forsaken spot, in the middle of
the Spanish Sahara. A fortress by the sea and our rustic
dwelling, that is all in hundreds of kilometers
around... The sea, at ebb tide, bathes us completely
and, at night, I lean my elbows on the small barred
window (we are in the dissident zone) and I can discern
the sea by my feet, as near as if I were on a boat.
Throughout the night the waves hit the walls of my
barrack. The other wall is set toward the desert... "And
he goes on: "I live in total deprivation. My bed
consists of a board and a thin mattress. A wash basin.
Ajar of water. I forget other details.., the typewriter
and some official papers. It is like a monastery cell.
The aircrafts land here every eight days. In between
these days silence..." (Letter to his mother. Cape Juby
1927.)
In order to overcome this deadly
boredom, which may take possession of a man under such
conditions, Saint-Exupéry establishes ties with the
Spaniards and soon wins them over with his games of
cards and his telepathy demonstrations. He gains their
confidence and the barrack that he shares with Toto
-basically a mecanic but also a cook during his free
time- is full of voices, songs and parties.
He also makes friends with some Arab
children who maraud by the barracks, and gradually
acquires renoun of being a good man, different from
others. He is invited to tea in their tents. In
exchange, Saint-Ex takes them on the aircraft. He treats
them as equals, for the crux of the matter is, as he
would later write in his Wind, sand and stars, "to calm
down their pride which is the main reason why they kill
the prisoners, more than for reasons of hatred. They
were not ignorant of the fact that some of them saw the
Arabs as a crowd full of indifference and disdain, and
this moved the Arabs to be vindicative".
Now he has a few Arabs on which he
can count, and their help shall be very useful when the
moment comes to rescue a pilot fallen in the desert.
This happens quite often. Then Saint-Exupéry has to
inspect the desert until he finds him, When the accident
is of little importance the aircraft can be repaired
quickly. It has to be done in a hurry because the
rebellious Arabs keep watch. Sometimes the risks are
high... "Looking for two air-planes lost in the desert I
covered 8.000 kilometers in two days. More than three
hundred men pursued me, shooting at me as if I were a
rabbit. There have been moments of fear, four times I
landed on dissident's territory, even I had to spend the
night there because of an accident... On such ts my
skin, offered with the greatest generosity, is at
stake." (Cape Juby 1928)
But the situation in the desert is
not always as effervescent, and at h times all live in
complete harmony at Cape Juby. At night, Saint-Exupéry
writes a new book. A board placed on two barrels is the
desk on works. As he goes on putting together his book,
he reads it aloud to his best friends, during the short
spans of time that they spend with him, before taking
off again. When it takes definite shape, he calls it
Southern Mail. Why this title? According to Pierre
Chevrier, Saint-Exupéry was looking for a title when "he
happened to see the designation of the flight to Dakar,
Southern Mail". And so he gave this title to his book in
which he expands on the theme of The Pilot published two
years before.
Eighteen months in Cape Juby and his
mission was more than accomplished. When he starts his
new assignment, he is awarded the Cross of Chevalier of
the Legion of Honour for the following reasons:
"Exceptional virtues, a pilot of great boldness, gifted
with the best professional qualities, cold blooded to
the utmost, and an exceptional sense of self-denial. As
airfield commander at Cape Juby, he fulfilled his
mission with a sense of sacrifice beyond compare, in a
desert area where the hostility of the Arabs is a
permanent risk. He has to his credit several brilliant
actions. His zeal, dedication and self-denial have
largely served the cause of the French aviation. He has
never hesitated in risking his life or suffering the
rigorous climatic conditions. He has also contributed to
the success of our commercial airlines, and, in
particular, made the development of the Toulouse-Dakar
line easier."
One
year in the land "where the stones fly" 

Didier Daurat thought the presence
of Saint-Exupéry more important in South America when he
appointed him, in October 1929, chief manager of the
company "Aeroposta-Argentina". His task was to set up
new branches along the Latin American coast, and so he
was put in charge of supervising the last stage of the
future route Natal-Punta Arenas. He had to open up new
ways in the Comodoro Rivadavia and Punta Arenas areas.
But he is not altogether satisfied
with his new job. He writes to his mother: "I have been
appointed chief manager for the development of the
Aeroposta Argentina, a branch of the main airline
company, with a salary of 225.000 francs a year. I
assume that this makes you happy; lam a little sad. I
liked it the way I had it before. I think that I feel
older. Of course, I shall continue flying, but only in
order to inspect and supervise new routes..." (Buenos
Aires, 1930.)
This feeling of weariness is clearly
felt in a letter to his friend Rinette: "I have under my
command a network of three thousand eight hundred
kilometers which little by little sucks out of me the
rest of you th and freedom which are still in me."
(Letter to Renee de Saussine, Buenos Aires 1930.)
He lives in Buenos Aires for a month,
a city that he hates. The change is complete, the huge
sand plains have been replaced by blocks of very high
buildings where there are masses of people. In the same
letter to Rinette, he adds: "I live in a small flat in a
fifteen storey building, seven above and seven below me,
surrounded by an enormous concrete city! I think, I
would feel the same nimbleness in the middle of a great
Pyramid."
He uses to spend most of the time in
the airplane, on the lookout for new airfields,
sometimes fighting against the strong winds from the
Patagonia. On his arrival in Buenos Aires he had met
with his old friends again, from the Toulouse-Dakar
route, Mermoz and Guillaumet among others. Saint-Exupéry
felt true admiration for them. He had known Mermoz, the
pilot, the pioneer, since he first started flying, and
when the route Casablanca-Dakar was inaugurated, the
same Mermoz was one of the main pioneers. Later on he
was sent as chief-pilot of South American routes and was
entrusted with the establishment of a new commercial
route. When the idea of night flights first appeared,
Mermoz was one of the first to turn it into reality. As
Saint-Exupéry explains later in Wind, sand and stars,
"Mermoz undertook such engagements not knowing anything
about it, not knowing whether he was going to come out
alive of such struggles or not. Mermoz experimented for
the others."
Saint-Exupery also liked Guillaumet
very much. He remembered how Guillaumet had cheered him
up on the wake of his first flight Toulouse-Rabat.
Gudlaumet, the good companion, would get lost later on
the Andes when Saint-Exupéry was chief of the Aeroposta.
For five days they searched the area although they had
been warned by Indians from the Andes that "the Andes
mountains, in winter, do not return the men". All hope
seemed lost but after eight days they were told that
Guillaumet was alive. Later he would say that lapidary
sentence: "I can assure you that I had to struggle more
than an animal." Indeed he had had to fight against
mountains, snow and hunger. In the end his face had
changed completely. "It was black, swollen like an
overripened fruit that everybody had hit. His hands were
slow and, in order to speak, he had to sit on the edge
of the bed and keep his feet dangling like a dead
weight." This is what Saint-Exupéry wrote in Wind, sand
and stars, a book dedicated to Guillaumet. He used to
say of him... "he sheds confidence like a lamp sheds
tight."
Throughout that South American year
Saint-Exupéry worked a lot at writing his second book,
Night Flight, which was going to be a fabulous success.
Its leit-motive, night flights, was then very much in
fashion. It is all about the self denial of the pilots,
and the inner conflicts of the chief manager of an
airport whose duty is to be above his private needs.
Andre Gide wrote the introduction, and the book won the
Femina Prize in December 1931. This way Saint-Exupéry
became the most appraised man of his time... the
well-known pilot started also as a great writer.
But his friends turned their backs on
him, contrary to the public, who praised his book. His
friends reproached him for having diverged from the
truth about the work of the pilots, the dramatic
character of their night flights, in short, they
reproached him for having disfigured reality.
Strictly speaking, Saint-Exupéry
would not write books again, and his Night Flight would
become a nightmare for him. "Because I have written this
book", he writes to Guillaumet in 1932, "my friends have
sentenced me to a life of misery and unfriendliness.
Mermoz will tell you about the reputation they have
created around me those who do not want to see me any
more, those that I loved so much".
That year, 1931, would be full of
events. In April, Saint-Exupéry marries Consuelo Suncin,
widow of the Argentinian journalist Gomez Carrillo. The
same year, the Airline company and its branch, the
Aeroposta Argentina, showed signs of disaster. The banks
stopped (heir credits and Saint-Exupéry was dismissed.
Start
from scratch 

Without a job, Saint-Exupéry was
obliged to accept a post as a simple pilot. After many
years he was doing the night flight Casablanca-Dakar
again.
Meanwhile time was up for the Airline
Company, and also for Didier Daurat, who was going to be
substituted. A few months later, Pierre Cot, new civil
airways minister amalgamated all the private air
companies in one, and so was formed "Air France". That
was a hard blow for everyone. Aeroposta was the end of
the spirit of solidarity and closeness.
Aimless again, Saint-Exupéry finds a
job as a trial pilot at the Latecoere company, aircraft
and seaplane constructor. His job lacks interest and
Saint-Exupéry becomes listless in such an atmosphere: "I
have just gone back to the seaplane centre - he writes
to a friend of his-, where I did some trials. My ears
still drone and my hands are full of grease. Jam
drinking alone on a terrace of a little café and night
is falling. I don't feel like going to supper... I spend
my days by a pond which is neither a sea nor a lake. It
is a mere lifeless surface which I do not like."
(Perpignan, 1932.)
On the other hand, Saint-Exupéry is
not a brilliant trial pilot. He makes unforgivable
mistakes. The last one almost kills him. He is compelled
to resign.
Back in Paris, he is bored stiff
Moreover his financial situation is precarious.
Since there is no better choice, and
in order to escape inactivity, in 1934 he accepts a job
in the advertising department of Air France. He travels
on missions in France and abroad. After a trip to
Saigon, he is sent to Moscow in May 1935 with the task
to write several articles for the newspaper "Paris-Soir"
He writes five articles altogether,
and they are a great success. The opposite happens with
his film Anne-Marie. He had wrUten the script before but
the film was only partly successful.
Nevertheless his finances have
improved in the last few months, so much so that he buys
himself an airplane, the "Simoun", then the fastest
airplane.
The fascination
of risk 

Saint-Exupéry had several projects
in view when he bought the "Simoun". One of them was to
beat the speed record between Paris and Saigon held by
Japy.
Around this time he has a frightening adventure in the
desert The date is the 29th of December 1935.
Saint-Exupéry and his mecanic Prevot spend five days in
the desert dying of thirst and continually suffering
from mirages until they are rescued by the Bedounis. In
a letter to his mother he explains how he felt:
"Separation from humanity and silence made me furious,
and I called you, mother. It is terrible to leave behind
a human being that needs you, like Consuelo. You feel,
then, the irresistible desire to go back and protect
her, support her. You feel like rooting out your
fingernails against the sand because you cannot fulfil
your duty. You even feel like lifting mountains." This
event was present in his mind when he wrote The Little
Prince.
Despite all Saint-Exupéry had not
lost courage. Risk had exerted a secret fascination on
him, it pulled at him irremissibly, as it so happened
two years later. Meanwhile he carried on with
journalism.
By that time Spain was the main
feature in all newspapers. A newspaper, the
"Intransigeant", decides to send Saint-Exupéry to
Barcelona with the task of writing about the civil war.
Under the heading Spain in blood he described atrocious
scenes he had witnessed. He reported bitterly: "Shooting
people here is a daily exercise. In Spain there are
crowds ~' movement, but the individual, this universe,
in vain, cries out for help from the bottom of the
well."
Several years had gone by since his
failure in the Paris-Saigon race, 'so he was ready for
the second race, this time between New York and Tierra
del Fuego. But certainly this time luck was not going to
be with him. As he was taking off in Guatemala, where he
had had a technical stop, the aircraft did not respond
and the tragedy occurred. It was the serious accident he
had ever had. Saint-Exupéry had a broken skull his left
shoulder was almost shattered. His condition was
alarming he was taken to New York. He was in coma for
several days. It took months for him to recover, and he
would never completely recover from his broken bones.
These long months of sedentary life
allowed him to write a new book, Wind, sand and stars.
It is a chain of memories, experiences and thoughts, all
of which take place in a time span covering ten years of
his life as a pilot.
In May 1939 the jury of (he Academy
awarded him the "Gran Prix". Four months later the
second world war broke out.
War
pilot 

Saint-Exupéry is mobilized at once,
promoted to captain and assigned as a reserve officer in
the Air Force at Toulouse. But the doctor's report was
adamant... his age, thirty nine, and his half-paralyzed
shoulder rendered him incapable of fu filling any war
mission. Such a verdict was like a death sentence to
Saint-Exupéry. He felt himself relegated to the rank of
"intelectuals in reserve, like jam jars on the shelves
of an advertising firm, to be eaten up after the war."
Therefore he took all sorts of steps
in order to have his assignment changed. He pestered all
and everybody who could put in a word for him, pledging
that "I have plenty to say about the events. I can talk
about them as a soldier and not as a tourist. It is the
only chance that I have to speak."
In the end, the reasonings that
General Davet presented to the authorities were
decisive... "what matters in the air force is not the
physical heart but heart high and dry." The 3rd of
November 1939 he was assigned to the reconnoitring squad
2/33, in Orconte, in the province of Champagne.
"Orconte -he would write in Flight to
Arras-, is a small village near Saint-Dizier, where my
group took quarters in the winter of 1939, a very bitter
winter. I used to live in a barn made of bricks dried in
the sun. At night the temperature was low enough to
freeze the water in my rustic pitcher. Therefore the
first thing I used to do when I got up, was to light the
fire, although I had to jump out of a warm and cozy bed,
where I was curled up in true delectation. Nothing
seemed to me more delightful than this simple, monastic
bed in that empty, cold room. After a hard day's work I
enjoyed the blessedness of rest."
The reconnoitering missions at eight
or ten thousand meters or at very low levels, when
airplanes represented perfect targets, were a daily
exercise. Saint-Exup6ry would experience, more than
ever, how perfect a target they were in a mission to
Arras. Later he would describe it in Flight to Arras.
Shortly after this, as Saint-Exupéry
had been suspecting so much, on the 22nd of June 1940,
France signed the Armistice, admitting her defeat.
Saint-Exupéry felt deeply wounded and did not stop until
he was granted a visa for America.
Nevertheless, he had doubts until the
time of his departure: his duty told him to go to
America in order to explain to the Americans France's
dramatic situation, but he also felt remorse at
abandoning his fatherland.
On the ship to New York he was told
about the death of Guillaumet, his best friend. He wrote
"Guillaumet is dead. Tonight I feel that lam left
without friends. I don't pity him. I have never pitied
dead people. But I am going to need such a long time to
realize his disappearance, and I am so weary of this
horrible job... This is going to last for months. I
shall be needing him so often. Does one grow old so
quickly? I am the only one left of the Casablanca-Dakar
team... Everyone else is dead and there is no one alive
with whom I can share my memories. Here am I old,
toothless and alone, pondering about all this on my own.
In South America there is not a single one left
either... there is not a single person left in the world
to whom I can say: Do you remember how perfect it was in
the desert? I thought that only the very old would
survive to all their friends, to all of them."
In
exile 

In January 1941 he took the last
floor in a building in Central Park South, and there he
spent long hours writing. His publishers asked him to
write a book about the war called Flight to Arras, in
which he expressed his opinions and approach to the war.
The book was published simultaneously in France and
America in 1942. The Germans quickly forbid its
distribution in France. In America the book was read by
a large number of the population. Pierre Lanux would say
about it: "In my opinion, Flight to Arras represents the
most efficient aid rendered to the French cause in
American territory."
During his two years in New York he
writes Letter to a hostage, a moving document used as an
introduction to a book written by the journalist Léon
Werth, a close friend of Saint-Exupéry, in the occupied
area of France at the time. The letter is dedicated to
the forty million Frenchmen, hostages of the Germans. It
was published in February 1943. Two months later The
Little Prince came out.
The
Little Prince 

In the whole of Saint-Fxupéry's
literary production one cannot imagine a book like this.
At first glance it seems an unusual book which bears no
relation at all to the preceding books. It takes the
shape of a poetical short story in which the animals
speak... For some, it was quite unthinkable that a man
of action and a hero at the same time, could, all of a
sudden, write books for children. For others it was
something incomprehensible, something, even lacking of
seriousness, to be rejected if not condemned. So, when
The Little Prince was published, the public gave it a
cold reception.
Nevertheless The Little Prince is the
book which shows best who Antoine de Saint-Exupéy was, a
book which contains all his philosophy.
The idea to write this short story
for children was not his. It was a happy coincidence and
there is a story to it.
Those who knew Saint-Exupéry describe
him as continually drawing children wherever he happened
to be, on his letters, on serviettes, on restaurant
menus, on any piece of paper that he could lay his
hands. One day, his American publisher Curtice Hitchcock
asked him what he was drawing. The answer came simple
and surprising: "Nothing much, it is the chdd in my
heart." The publisher took the opportunity to ask him:
"Why don 't you write the story of this child into a
children's book?" And so The Little Prince was born.
As the book was meant for children,
it needed drawings. But soon he was convinced that he
would have to do them himself since professional
illustrators were unable to produce the simplicity and
candour that he demanded for his short story.
The Little Prince seems to be an
easier and simpler book than all the others published
until then but, in fact, at the same time, it is the
most profound.
On the surface it is a short story
for children, but in reality it is a story of a child
written for grown-ups or, if one so wishes, a going
back, a return to childhood, "that huge territory that
is our origin." "All grownups were first children, but
few of them remember it", thus the author writes in his
dedicatory to Leon Werth. This shows that his intention
could not be clearer. The book is aimed at all grown-ups
who have already forgotten the child that they once
were, the child that still sleeps within them.
Saint-Exupéry was always faithful to
his childhood. In all his books we come across memories
of his childhood, a time of complete happiness and
innocence.
The plot of The Little Prince is very
simple. The little prince lives on a tiny asteroid, and
he shares it with a whimsical flower and three
volcanoes. But he has "problems" with the flower and
feels lonely. Until one day he decides to leave the
planet and look for a friend. While he looks for
friendship he travels over several planets inhabited
sucessively by a king, a conceited man, a tippler, a
business man, a lamp lighter, a geographer. The approach
to "important matters" of the "grown-ups" leaves him
perplexed, and throws him into confusion. As he travels
on, he arrives at the planet Earth, but he feels
lonelier than ever in its hugeness and emptiness. A
snake introduces him to a pessimistic vision of men and
how little one can expect of them. The fox does not
contribute to better his opinions, but teaches him how
to make friends: one has to set up ties, one has to let
oneself be "tamed". At the end he makes him a present of
his secret: "Only with the heart can one see fully.
Essential matters are invisible to the eyes." Suddenly
the little prince realizes that he has been "tamed" by a
flower, and decides to go back to his planet using the
quick means put at his disposal by the snake. It is then
that he meets the pilot who also was suffering from
loneliness, and as the little prince disappears, the man
finds a friend...
Despite its apparent simplicity, The
Little Prince establishes the question mark which
conditions our existence. It is a total change of
values. To the question about essential matters in life,
the answer is surprising and disquieting. All that men
consider serious and important is small matter and
without sense in the eyes of the little prince, whereas
all that men consider unimportant is in fact the reason
of existence for the little prince. His ironical
judgement about the earth cannot be more eloquent: "The
earth is not just an ordinary planet! One can count
there one hundred and eleven kings (not forgetting, of
course, the Negro kings among them), seven thousand
geographers, nine hundred thousand businessmen, seven
million five hundred thousand tipplers, three hundred
and eleven million conceited men, that is to say, about
two thousand million grown-ups."
In order to get out of the emptiness
that surrounds men in solitude, one has to resort to
friendship, love, one has to resort to oneself The idea
is not new. It had been displayed in almost all of his
preceding works. Therefore, contrary to what U might
seem, The Little Prince is not an unusual book. It is
like the last movement in the symphony of his work in
which all the foregoing themes are brought together
schematically. In the end we realize that the charming
"little prince" is nothing else but the "duplicate" of
Saint-Exupéry, it is the child living inside him that
stirs him and guides him, the child that wakes up in the
crucial moments of his life and prevents him from taking
stupid decisions like many a "grown up" who believe only
in numbers, in demonstrations, in the seriousness of
logic, more than in the seriousness of the heart.
In short one might say that The
Little Prince is a quiet meditation about the solitude
of man -often a result of his conceit- and about
friendship, the only elixir capable of enriching human
life and of re-establishing lost relationships among
men.
"I do
not care if I die in the war... 

In 1942 the Americans decide to take
part in the war, and on the 6th of November they
disembark in North Africa.
After publishing The Little Prince,
Saint-Exupéry goes to Algiers in order to join his 2/33
team, at that time under the command of the Americans.
He joins them in May 1943. The Americans equipped the
team 2/33 with a new type of aircraft, the "Lightning
P.38" which reached speeds of up to seven hundred
kilometers per hour.
The age limit to pilot this new type
of aircraft was thirty-five. Saint-Exupéry at
forty-three, and with a stiffshoulder3 realizes
that he his excluded from piloting that aircraft.
Nevertheless, thanks to influences, he obtains
permission to do so after a strict seven-week training
course.
In June he is promoted to commander.
On the 21st of July he flies out on his first mission
over the Rhone and Provence. Ten days later he carries
out a second mission but a faulty landing serves as a
pretext to the American command to remind him that his
age and physical condition are a handicap for piloting
the "Lightning P.38". Saint-Exupéry is withdrawn from
the 2/33 team.
During eight months he uses all his
powers, contacts people who might use their influence in
his favour, and goes through times of depression and
discouragement. Despite all this, his literary
production bears fruit. He goes on writing his book The
wisdom of the sands, started in 1936 and published
posthumously.
Finally, Colonel Chassin, who had
known Saint-Exupéry for several years, manages to
convince the American general Eaker to let Saint-Exupéry
rejoin the 2/33 team, at that time in Sardinia. Again he
is accepted under the condition not to fly out on more
than five war missions.
The five missions become eight
because he always volunteers for any mission. On the 31
of July 1944, at a quarter to nine in the morning, he
takes off on his number nine mission to photo graph the
Grenoble and Annecy areas. At half past one he has still
not come back when he has only one hour's petrol left.
At half past two his companions suspect the worst.
The aircraft and the body of
Saint-Exupéry, like the little prince's in the desert,
were not found on the earth. Maybe he travelled to
asteroid B 612 to join his little prince, silently,
leaving no trace or, at the most, leaving behind a
stream of stars.
A letter was found in his room
addressed to General X, written shortly before:
"I do not care if I die in the war or
if I get in a rage because of these flying torpedo's
which have nothing to do with actual flying, and which
change the pilot into an accountant by means of
indicators and switches. But if I come back alive from
this ungrateful but necessary "job", there will be only
one question for me: What can one say to mankind? What
does one have to say to mankind?"
JOELLE EYHERAMONNO

