What happened to Antoine de Saint Exupery. Would he have become a writer if he had not become a pilot? “You only have to grow up, and the merciful god leaves you to your fate”

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Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupery (fr. Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exup; ry; June 29, 1900, Lyon,
France - July 31, 1944) - French writer, poet and professional pilot.

Pilot and writer

The turning point in his fate was 1921 - then he was drafted into the army of France. Interrupting the deferral he received when he entered a higher educational institution, Antoine enrolled in the 2nd Fighter Aviation Regiment in Strasbourg. At first, he is assigned to a work team at repair shops, but soon he manages to pass the exam for a civilian pilot. He is transferred to Morocco, where he is already a military pilot, and then sent for improvement to Istres. In 1922, Antoine completed courses for reserve officers in Avora and became a second lieutenant. In October he was assigned to the 34th Aviation Regiment at Bourges near Paris. In January 1923, the first plane crash happened to him, he received a head injury. In March, he is commissioned. Exupery moved to Paris, where he devoted himself to writing. However, in this field, at first he was not successful and was forced to take on any job: he traded cars, was a salesman in a bookstore.

Saint-Exupery made several sorties on the Block-174 aircraft, performing aerial reconnaissance tasks, and was presented with the Military Cross award. In June 1941, after the defeat of France, he moved to his sister in the unoccupied part of the country, and later left for the United States. He lived in New York, where, among other things, he wrote his most famous book, The Little Prince (1942, published 1943). In 1943, he joined the Fighting France Air Force and with great difficulty achieved his enrollment in a combat unit.
He had to master the piloting of the new high-speed Lightning R-38 aircraft.

On July 31, 1944, Saint-Exupéry left the Borgo airfield on the island of Corsica on a reconnaissance flight and did not return.

Circumstances of death

For a long time, nothing was known about his death. And only in 1998, in the sea near Marseille, one fisherman discovered a bracelet.
A Saint-Exupéry bracelet found by a fisherman near Marseille.

It had several inscriptions: "Antoine", "Consuelo" (that was the name of the pilot's wife) and "c/o Reynal & Hitchcock, 386, 4th Ave. NYC USA. This was the address of the publishing house where Saint-Exupery's books were published. In May 2000, diver Luc Vanrel stated that at a depth of 70 meters he found the wreckage of an aircraft, possibly belonging to Saint-Exupery. The remains of the aircraft were scattered over a strip a kilometer long and 400 meters wide. Almost immediately, the French government banned any searches in the area.
Permission was received only in the fall of 2003. Specialists raised fragments of the aircraft. One of them turned out to be part of the cockpit, the serial number of the aircraft was preserved: 2734-L. According to the American military archives, scientists compared all the numbers of aircraft that disappeared during this period. So, it turned out that the onboard serial number 2734-L corresponds to the aircraft, which was listed in the US Air Force under the number 42-68223, that is, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning aircraft, a modification of the F-4 (long-range photographic reconnaissance aircraft), which was flown by Exupery.

The Luftwaffe logs do not contain records of aircraft shot down in this area on July 31, 1944, and the wreckage itself does not have obvious signs of shelling. This gave rise to many versions of the crash, including versions of a technical malfunction and the pilot's suicide.

According to press publications from March 2008, the German Luftwaffe veteran, 88-year-old Horst Rippert, pilot of the Jagdgruppe 200 squadron, stated that it was he who shot down Antoine de Saint-Exupery's plane in his Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter. According to his statements, he did not know who was at the controls of the enemy aircraft:
“I didn’t see the pilot, only later I found out that it was Saint-Exupery”

The fact that Saint-Exupéry was the pilot of the downed plane became known to the Germans in the same days from the radio interception of the conversations of French airfields, which were carried out by German troops. The absence of relevant entries in the Luftwaffe logs is due to the fact that, apart from Horst Rippert, there were no other witnesses to the air battle, and this aircraft was not officially counted as shot down to him.

They say that brilliant writers and poets have the gift of clairvoyance and are able to look into the future. Once, an editor asked Exupery what kind of death he would prefer. Antoine made a list of options, one of which was - death in the water ...

When on July 31, 1944, around 8 am, Exupery's plane took off, a Me-109 fighter piloted by Horst Rippert took off from the Luftwaffe base.
Above the sea, 200 meters below him, a German pilot saw a French fighter. The pilot did not seem to notice the enemy and did not take any maneuvers to get away from the Messerschmitt or take the fight. Horst hit the French aircraft from the first approach. It was the last (28th) aircraft shot down by Rippert in that war.

Thanks to the books of Saint-Exupéry, Horst fell in love with the sky and became a pilot. The nightmarish paradox of war - a grateful reader knocks down a beloved writer ...

The mystery of the death of Saint-Exupery | peek-a-boo
pikabu.ru›story/tayna_gibeli_sentyekzyuperi…

The purpose of this article is to establish the cause of the death of ANTOINE DE SAINT - EXUPERIE by his FULL NAME code.

Watch in advance "Logicology - about the fate of man".

Consider the FULL NAME code tables. \If there is a shift in numbers and letters on your screen, adjust the image scale\.

30 41 50 81 97 103 120 130 131 145 164 184 185 199 204 210 228 234 248 267
E C Z U P E R I A N T U A N d e S E N T
267 237 226 217 186 170 164 147 137 136 122 103 83 82 68 63 57 39 33 19

1 15 34 54 55 69 74 80 98 104 118 137 167 178 187 218 234 240 257 267
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
267 266 252 233 213 212 198 193 187 169 163 149 130 100 89 80 49 33 27 10

EXUPERY ANTOINE de SAINTES = 267.

267 = 89-Killed + 178-\89-Killed + 89-Killed\.

267 \u003d 210-(gunshot) WOUND IN THE HEART + 57-FIRE (trill ...).

210 = (gunshot) HEART WOUND
__________
63 = DEATH

210 - 63 \u003d 147 \u003d (y) BREAKED IN THE HEART.

267 = GUNSHOT WOUND TO CE(heart).

228 = (fire) SHOT WOUND SE (heart)

57 = FIRE (trill...)

228 - 57 \u003d 171 \u003d (h) SHOT IN THE HEART.

204 = BULLET PIERCED HEART(CE)
________________________________
68 \u003d (kill) T IN HERD (ce)

204 - 68 = 136 = KILLED BY A BULLET IN C(heart).

80 = (pu) LEFT WOUND(s)
______________________________
193 = KILLED WITH A BULLET IN THE HEART

(a) E (rofotograf) + K (end) + Z (astrelen) (turn) Yu (from) P (ullet) + (deadly) E R (anen) I (e) + (h) A (arrow) N (from a machine gun) T (a) + U (world) AN (ie) + (damage) DE (nie) CE (heart) + (instant) N (th) + (death) T (b)

267 \u003d, E, K, + Z, Yu, P, +, E R, I, +, A, N, T, + U, AN, +, DE, SE, +, N, +, T,.

DATE OF BIRTH code: 06/29/1900. This is = 29 + 06 + 19 = 54 = KILLED.

267 = 54-Killed + 213-BULLET DEATH.

Code DATE OF DEATH: 07/31/1944. This is \u003d 31 + 07 + 19 + 44 \u003d 101 \u003d DEATH OF LYOT (chika).

267 = 147-DEATH OF THE PILOT + 120-END OF LIFE.

54 = KILLED = (BIRTH DATE code)
_____________________________________________________
233 = 101-(DATE DEATH code) + 132-DEATH

233 - 54 \u003d 179 \u003d 132-LEAVING LIFE + 47-ZAST (relen).

19 36 46 51 74 75 94 123 139 145 162 165 180 186 196 227 239 271
JULY 31
271 252 235 225 220 197 196 177 148 132 126 109 106 91 85 75 44 32

"Deep" decryption offers the following option, in which all columns match:

(sbi) T RI (tm) (ser) DCA + (death) Th + P (r) ERV (an) O (heart) E (b) I (enie) + (dying) Yu (shchy) + (strike) LA(n)

271 \u003d, T RI, DCA +, Th + P, ERV, O, E, I +, Yu, +, LA,.

We look at the column in the lower table of the FULL NAME code:

34 = DEATH(s)
________________________________
252 = (t)THIRTY FIRST OF JULY

34 = DEATH(s)
____________________________________________
252 = 201-SHOT DEATH + 51-KILL

252 - 34 = 218 = BULLET WOUND TO THE HEART(s).

Code of COMPLETE YEARS OF LIFE: 76-FORTY + 100-FOUR = 176.

18 33 50 65 76 100 106 125 153 170 176
FORTY FOUR
176 158 143 126 111 100 76 70 51 23 6

176 = 106-DAMAGE + 70-HEART.

106 - 70 \u003d 36 \u003d PU (lei).

"Deep" decryption offers the following option, in which all columns match:

C (heart) O (became) (high) R (el) O (m) + K (vomit) CHE (nie) (o) T (in) Y (st) PE (la)

176 \u003d C, O, +, P, O, + K, CHE, T, S, RE,.

267 = 176-FORTY-FOUR + 91-\51-KILLED + 40-KON(ets)\.

We look at the column in the upper table of the FULL NAME code:

103 \u003d (shot) N on the spot in the SE (heart)
______________________________________
170 = FORTY-FOUR(s)

Antoine de Saint-Exupery is known to the whole world, mainly thanks to his philosophical work "The Little Prince". But what kind of person was Exupery? The biography of this writer-pilot is very little known to many, despite the fact that his fate is full of interesting twists and turns. It contained dramatic love, great friendships, and adventures, many of which are reflected in his books.

The Saint-Exupéry family

The biography of the future writer begins in the French city of Lyon, where he was born on June 29, 1900. He was the third child of the Comte de Saint-Exupery and his wife. In just 4 years of marriage, the couple managed to acquire two daughters, Marie-Madeleine and Simone, and a son. Soon after Antoine, his brother Francois was born, and two years later, his younger sister Gabrielle de Saint-Exupery.

The biography of the future writer was soon clouded. Immediately after the birth of his youngest daughter, Jean de Saint-Exupery, whom George Sand herself dubbed a real French chevalier, died, leaving his wife alone with five children and without a livelihood.

Antoine Exupery: a short biography. Childhood

After the death of their father and husband, the family settles with Aunt Marie in Lyon on Bellecour Square, but often the children stay at their grandmother's castle, where Queen Margot herself once visited.

Despite the poverty, the family is very friendly, and all the children get along well with each other. Of course, Antoine is attached to his sisters, but his true friendship is with his younger brother Francois. She adores her little son and his mother, she calls him the Sun King for his light curls, upturned nose and easy character, which remained with Exupery for life.

His biography is full of memoirs of his contemporaries and family that the boy grew up very cheerful and inquisitive, adored animals, and also loved to delve into engines, perhaps this is where his love for aviation came from, which will develop much later.

Education

At the age of 8, Antoine entered a Christian school in Lyon, and after that, together with his brother, he continued his education at the Jesuit College in Montreux. The next stage is a college in Switzerland, where the boy entered at the age of 14. Having received a bachelor's degree in three years, the young man plans to enter the Naval Lyceum in Paris, even attends preparatory courses, but does not stand up to the competition.

When Antoine turns 17, his brother François dies unexpectedly from articular rheumatism. The young man is very upset by the loss of a person close to him, he withdraws into himself.

After failing the exams at the military lyceum, Saint-Exupery was forced to be content with attending lectures on architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts.

Getting to know the sky Pilot

Exupery, whose biography is inextricably linked with the sky, dreamed of him since childhood. The first flight happened in his life when he was only 12 years old. The famous pilot Gabriel Wroblewski, despite the prohibitions of Antoine's mother, took him with him to the air field in Amberie. This short flight impressed the boy so much that it left a mark on his whole life.

However, the next chance to get closer to heaven was presented to him only at the age of 21, when he joined the army and became a soldier of Exupery. From that moment on, his biography is full of flights. First, he enrolled in an aviation regiment in Strasbourg, where he was assigned as a non-flying soldier in repair shops. However, the sky beckoned him, and de Saint-Exupery decided to pass the exam for a civilian pilot. In parallel with the service, he learns to fly, and at the end of the year he is transferred to Casablanca, where he passes the exam and receives the rank of officer.

During this period, he writes in his diaries that he has an irresistible desire to fly. Soon after receiving the opportunity to be a civilian pilot, he also receives the right to fly a military aircraft, and then, having received the rank of second lieutenant in the reserve, he is transferred to serve in an aviation regiment near Paris.

In 23, Exupery gets into his first accident, gets severely injured and temporarily ties up with aviation. He works at a tile factory, sells trucks, until fate finally gives him a chance to realize the young man's second passion and talent - writing.

First attempts at pen

Antoine began to write quite early and immediately successfully - his first work, the fairy tale "Odyssey of the Top Hat", written by him in college in 1914, receives first prize in a literary competition.

However, the door to serious literature will open for him much later. In 1925, Antoine, at the invitation of his cousin, comes to her salon, where he meets writers and publishers. They are literally fascinated by the young man and his work and offer to publish his stories. And already in April of the following year, his story “Pilot” was published in the magazine “Silver Ship”.

Return to the sky

The first public success brings Exupery to the wealthy businessman de Massima, who introduces him to the leadership of the Aeropostal airline. At first, Exupery worked only as a mechanic, and then as a mail plane pilot. And he began to fly not just anywhere, but to Africa. Soon he becomes the head of a small airport in the city of Cap Juby in the heart of the Sahara desert. To the surprised questions of his relatives about his fate and career as a writer, he always answered that in order to write, you first need to live. And life here is amazing. In addition to the main work, Saint-Ex, as his friends came up with to call him, uses all his diplomatic talents and either reconciles the warring African tribes with each other, or pacifies the warlike Moors, or rescues crashed pilots from their captivity, or even tames a wild fox.

This work and travels to new amazing places did not change the character of Exupery. His big kind heart was ready to give everything to people. He spent money and time helping his friends and family, helping them solve their problems, and believed that hatred could only be overcome with love. Thanks to this work, Antoine has his closest friends - Jean Mermoz and Henri Guillaume. Together they will make a significant contribution to the development of aviation not only in Europe, but also in Africa and even in South America.

New points on the map

After Africa, Exupery briefly returns to France, where he begins to collaborate with book publishers, and also improves his pilot skills. And soon a new appointment - the branch of the airline "Aeropostal" in South America, in Buenos Aires. Regular night flights over Casablanca - this is the main work that Antoine Exupery performs.

A brief biography of the further period of his life was marked by the financial collapse of his native airline in 31, after which Exupery left her. Later, he works on the postal lines linking Dakar, Marseille and Algiers, tests new seaplanes and again gets into a serious accident. He miraculously survives, and divers find him with difficulty. And his next accident happened soon in Saigon, in the Mekong valley.

In 33, Exupery entered the service of the Paris-Soir newspaper, where he became a correspondent. Among other countries, he visits the USSR, where he meets Bulgakov. Exupery's essays on the Soviet Union are a great success with readers. Soon he organizes a large air tour over the Mediterranean to promote aviation.

Crash plans

Being not only a pilot, but also an inventor, he, having borrowed money, buys an airplane and participates in the development of a project for a high-speed flight from Paris to Saigon. He is in a hurry, because in order to get money for the task, you need to complete it before December 31st. On the night of December 30, Exupery, along with his mechanic, crashed in the Libyan desert, miraculously did not die, and tried to survive for several more days without food and water. They are rescued by nomadic Bedouins.

The last serious accident occurs on a flight from New York to Tierra del Fuego. For several days after the accident, the pilot was in a coma, he had serious head injuries and other injuries, so he can no longer put on a parachute on his own due to a shoulder injury. A brief biography of de Saint-Exupery is literally full of such accidents.

Literary success

While still working in the hot deserted Cap Juby, Antoine writes his first great work at night, the book “Southern Postal”. In 29, returning to France, Exupery signed an agreement with the publishing house of Gaston Gallimard to publish seven of his novels. The second work is "Night Flight" written in Argentina. In 1931, Exupery received the prestigious Femina Award for this novel, and a year later, American filmmakers made a full-length film based on it.

The adventures and travels that befell Exupery have always been reflected in his works. So, the accident in the Libyan desert and subsequent wanderings through it formed the basis of the novel "Land of the People". Influenced the work and the trip to the USSR, which made Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

A short biography, but full of experiences, is also included in the novel “Military Pilot”. It is inspired by World War II. Taking a direct part in it and doing everything in his power, Exupery puts all his confusion, all his mental anguish into the book. In the United States, it is a huge success, and in her native France, she is banned by censorship. On the wave of popularity from America comes an order for a children's fairy tale. In the course of work, the writer creates his most famous work - "The Little Prince" with author's illustrations.

Personal life

Exupery, whose biography (short) would not have been disclosed without personal relationships, truly loved only two women. Despite the subtle mental organization and, of course, the lyrical character, Antoine was not very lucky with the girls. At 18, he first met the one he fell in love with. Her name was Louise and she was the sister of his comrade. Louise came from a noble wealthy family and had a very absurd and capricious character. Antoine, having fallen in love with her without a memory, made an offer, but did not receive a definite answer. Some time later, when the young man was in the hospital with his first injury, he learned about the final break of the engagement. It was a strong blow for him. And Louise only considered him a loser, even the literary success that Antoine de Exupery received did not change her opinion.

The biography of a tall, stately, handsome and charming French pilot, however, could not do without the attention of women, but he himself, having once experienced disappointment, was in no hurry to start novels. At the same time, he was also worried that he was wasting his youth and life. In letters to his mother, he complained that he could not meet a woman who could calm his anxiety.

However, Antoine Exupery soon met such a woman. His biography at that time continues in Buenos Aires, where the writer meets Consuelo Carrilo. It is not known exactly how they met, but it must be assumed that they were introduced by a mutual friend, writer Benjamin Crepier. Consuelo was the widow of the writer Gomez Carrilo and had a rather complex character. A short, swarthy, not too beautiful woman was nevertheless the center of attention. She carried herself proudly and arrogantly, like a queen, was well educated, well-read and intelligent. She brought confusion into Exupery's life, pestering him with violent scandals and tantrums, but it seemed that this was all he lacked.

The uneasy love of a writer

The memoirs of Ksenia Kuprina, the daughter of the Russian writer A. Kuprin, are curious. She met Consuelo in Paris and was fascinated by her intelligence and grace. One day, an Argentinian called Xenia in the middle of the night and begged her to come. She told a 19-year-old girl the story that she met an amazing man, whom she fell in love with incredibly much. But they are not destined to be together, as he was shot by the revolutionaries right in front of her eyes. Shocked, Kuprina took Consuelo to her country house and consoled her friend for several days, literally pulling her out of the lake, in which she wanted to drown herself with obsessive persistence.

What was the indignation of Kuprina when it turned out that the shot lover was Exupery, while alive and unharmed. Consuelo was so angry with him and wanted to leave that she thought he was dead and made others believe in it.

They got married just a few months after they met, but pretty soon their life together ceased to be joyful and happy. Consuelo literally went crazy, bullying her husband with her antics. She either put up a fight and threw dishes in front of guests, then went to bars until the morning and told vile lies about her spouse. However, he endured everything with a smile and calmness. Perhaps only he knew what she really was, and saw the other side of her unbearable character. Be that as it may, this love was as devoted and passionate as on the first day they met.

World War II period

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, whose biography also falls on the war years, ended up at 37 in Nazi Germany. He was unpleasantly shocked by what Nazism does to people. When England and France declare war on Germany, Exupery is determined to serve on the ground for health reasons, but he connected all communications and was assigned to an aviation reconnaissance group.

After living and working in the United States in 1944, Exupery returned to his homeland again, but was not allowed to intelligence activities, as he was already in the reserve. And again you have to connect connections. Despite serious health problems, he is allowed to make 5 more flights to get pictures of the area. On July 31, an aircraft flew on a mission, piloted by Antoine Saint-Exupery. The biography of the writer ends at this moment, since the plane did not return at the appointed time. Only 60 years later, in 2004, the remains of the kindest writer on the planet were raised and identified from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

The universe of Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Consuelo Sunsin (1901–1979)

The widow of the Guatemalan writer Enrique Gómez Carrillo, Consuelo studied art and French. It was like a lightning strike. She and Antoine married on 12 April 1931 in Agay, where she was taken in by his sister's family. Their relationship was passionate and stormy, for Consuelo had a volcanic character, characteristic of her homeland. When Saint-Ex received the Femina Award, he left it to continue the evening with Nellie de Vogüé, with whom he had an affair. She joined him when he needed her; he took care of her like a child. She inspired him to look like a rose from The Little Prince - with her thorns and her beauty. Consuelo was unbalanced and beautiful. Despite their incessant quarrels, he always felt responsible for her. Shortly before his death, he entrusted her to the care of his mother. From that moment she lived in Grasse, where she died in 1979.

Louise de Vilmorin (1902–1969)

Founder of the Bossuet Group, where Antoine received the title of "Great Sentimental and Comic Poet", Louise was his first love. She limped, but was the subject of universal courtship. But only one managed to seduce her: Antoine. They became engaged, and their marriage was planned for the end of 1923. But the family did not like it, for the young man was poor. This, plus Antoine's accident in Bourges, which threatened that Louise would become the youngest widow in her circle, forced her to abandon their joint projects. Antoine then plunged into deep sorrow. He drove her out of himself with the help of writing, inspired by the image of Genevieve in the Southern Post Office. However, he did not stop writing to her, found her in his Parisian revelry and never forgot.

Nellie de Vogüet (1908–2003)

Nellie was present at the trial readings of the "Southern Post Office" at Louise de Vilmorin. Then he and Antoine met in Parisian salons, and a stable relationship was established between them. She gave him stability. This is evident from the numerous letters they exchanged, where Antoine spoke to her of his unconditional love. She found him in New York in 1938 after an accident in Guatemala City, then in Orconte. She joined him in Algiers in 1943. After her departure, he never stopped writing to her to declare his passion to her again, and this continued until July 30, 1944, until the day before his disappearance. She was engaged in the publication of his works: Citadels, Military Notes, Notebooks.

René de Saussin (born 1897)

The sister of Antoine's classmate, she became his confidant. He read to her his early compositions - The Pilot and Manon, the Dancer. In the 1930s, they maintained an epistolary relationship in which she played the role of protection against his amorous loneliness. Statements alternated there with reproaches about his worldly life, which prevented him from answering.

Suzanne-Georgette Charpentier, nicknamed Annabelle (1907–1996)

She is Anna Maria in the 1935 film of the same name, directed by Raymond Bernard and written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In June 1941, Saint-Exupery, invited by Jean Renoir to Los Angeles, met with her. When he had gallbladder surgery and was hospitalized, she stood by his bedside and read Andersen's The Little Mermaid to him. She inspired in him the desire to write the story of the Little Prince, the child he had long painted on napkins in restaurants, the one who continues to live inside every adult. They met later in New York where they were feeding squirrels in Central Park. Annabella then said that when they were together, they were 12 years old.

Natalie Paley (1905–1981)

On the set of The Southern Post Office, the young princess Natalya Pavlovna Romanova hypnotized Antoine, as she did with many artists and aristocrats during the Mad Years. In New York in 1941, she became his confidante during their brief correspondence. In Montreal, where he lingered, he wrote letters full of despair to her, where he shared his feelings and asked for support. From this was born a platonic relationship that was never able to materialize due to what she experienced during the October Revolution of 1917, when her father and brothers were first thrown into prison and then killed.

Sylvia Hamilton Reinhardt (1910–1994)

When Antoine met her, the young journalist did not speak a word of French, and he did not speak a word of English, but who could care then! St. Ex never hesitated to leave Bevin House, where he lived with Consuelo, to come to her in New York. They spent charming evenings at Sylvia's apartment, where Antoine worked on The Little Prince and sketched her dog for some sketches. Or they visited different places together in New York, in particular "Club 21". After leaving, in April 1943, he left her the most precious thing: his camera and the manuscript of The Little Prince. It was she who inspired him to the famous words: “Only the heart is vigilant. You can’t see the most important thing with your eyes.” After leaving the United States, Saint-Ex maintained an epistolary relationship with her.

Henri de Segonne (1901–1979)

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's first companion in the nightly amusements and fights, even when they were students at the Lycée Saint-Louis. They met again in 1920, dressed as Roman legionnaires, in the same theatrical play. One will then become a climber and go to the Himalayas, the other to the desert. In March 1939, Saint-Exupéry was godfather to his daughter Anne-Marie.

Charles Salles (born 1900)

In Fribourg, where Antoine met him, Charles shared his love of practical jokes. Later, in the corridors of the Saint-Maurice castle, their discussions began. Then came the hour of the first journey. They visited Creuse, Cher and Allier, where Saint-Ex was the representative of the Sorer truck factory. Together they ran to provincial parties and beauties. On the farm of Panisse, where Charles cultivated the land, he hosted Antoine, accompanied by Consuelo and Werth. In 1940 they met again in Tarascon and dined at Manosque with Giono and Pagnol.

Louis de Bonnevie (1900–1927)

Antoine met him in short pants in Lyon. One was an extrovert, and the other was on his own. A strong friendship quickly developed between them. With Bonvie, as he called him, Antoine had his first great literary and philosophical disputes. They wrote to each other during their studies, until the death of Louis. Sent in 1926 as an artillery gunner to Morocco, he died there of typhus in 1927.

Leon-Paul Fargue (1876–1947)

A frequenter of literary salons, a subtle chronicler of Parisian life, Léon-Paul Fargue met the young Antoine at Yvonne de Lestrange's. Before his departure as a reporter for the USSR, Farg introduced him to Prince Alexander Malinovsky, who told him about the fate of his country. The two poets shared a certain interest in bohemian life, making appointments at the "cheese museum", in Androuet, and spending evenings at the Lipp or Antoine's, on the Rue de Chanale. Despite belonging to different generations, Farg remained attached to this “second youth” of his in the society of Saint-Ex.

Joseph Kessel (1898–1979)

Their friendship was born in 1931 thanks to Mermoz. The author of The Crew, dedicated to the life of pilots during the First World War, and Desert Wind, the first book about Aeropostal, encouraged him in December 1935 to fly Paris to Saigon and sketched his portrait in Gringoire. Sent to cover the Spanish Civil War, they met in Madrid. St. Ex then welcomed Kessel in 1940, before flying to New York.

Leon Werth (1878–1955)

Introduced to each other in 1931 by the journalist René Delange, Werth and Saint-Ex immediately became friends and met regularly in Paris or at Sainte-Amour, Werth's country house in the Jura Mountains. Together they laughed out loud, unless they were quarreling over political issues. Antoine came to Werth in mid-October 1940 in Saint-Amour, where he fled, being a Jew and a communist in his convictions. He amused him by reading a few pages of The Citadel. These two men will never meet again. In 1943, Antoine published The Little Prince in the United States, dedicating it to "his best friend."

André Gide (1869–1951)

Gide, when he met Antoine de Saint-Exupéry at Yvonne de Lestrange's, addicted him to writing. Realizing Gide's influence in the New French Review, the young man showed him his first manuscript of the Southern Post Office. On his return from Argentina, two years later, he began writing Night Flight, to which André Gide offered to write a foreword. The latter also inspired him to write a story about Guillaume's adventures in the Andes. At Château de Châtre, owned by Yvonne de Lestrange, the two writers exchanged views on literature and politics when they weren't playing cards. Shortly before his death, Saint-Ex offered Gide an airplane flight, but Gide declined the offer, claiming that he coughed heavily so as not to suffer the inconvenience of piloting a man known for his eccentricity.

Bernard Lamotti (1901–1983)

Antoine and Bernard met while studying fine arts, with a brush in their hands, each at his own easel, and then they will be friends for a long time, and they will visit cafes together with greater pleasure than workshops. Antoine's room became the scene of their artistic endeavors, one painting, the other writing. When Lamotte returned from Argentina, he became Antoine's ideal companion on his nightly adventures in Paris. But they became especially close during his stay in New York in 1938, and then in 1941-1942. Then Bernard was already a prominent artist and sculptor. In his apartment, Saint-Ex met with Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Jean Gabin.

Jean Mermoz (1901–1936)

Antoine and Jean met in 1926 when Saint-Exupery was a pilot for the Latecoer company. On July 14–15, 1929, Mermoz became the first pilot to cross the Andes, and on May 12–13, 1930, he performed the first airmail flight between France and South America. For Antoine, still confused in his contradictions, he quickly became a model. The two men did not stop dating in cafes in all corners of the world. Even Mermoz's cooperation with Colonel La Roque within the framework of the Christian nationalist movement "Fiery Crosses" will not interfere with their friendship. December 7, 1936, the day of Mermoz's disappearance, would mark the beginning of a fall for Saint-Ex, which he could not avoid. And in vain will he try to exorcise his sadness by dedicating articles to his friend in "Marianne" and in "The Irreconcilable".

Henri Guillaumet (1902–1940)

Since Antoine's arrival at Latecoer, they have been inseparable. Guillaume, who became a legendary pilot of the Aeropostal, was responsible for the new recruitment of workers for the Line, and he gave him a lesson in special geography. The land in it was inhabited by lighthouses that served as abode for people, an orange field took up more space than the Sierra Nevada. Three years later, when Guillaume married Noel in Buenos Aires, Saint-Ex was one of his witnesses and dedicated his book Planet of the Humans to him, in which he excitedly returned to the episode with his accident in the Andes. Having crashed near Laguna Diamante on June 13, 1930, Guillaume had to fight for his life for five days, while Saint-Exupery was looking for him between the peaks of the Cordillera. They were side by side aboard the seaplane Lieutenant de Vesso Paris, in which they made the first non-stop flight across the North Atlantic on 14 and 15 July 1939. The disappearance of Guillaume was a tragic milestone in the life of Antoine, who has always said since then that he no longer had friends.

Tricks

Sleep while swimming

When he lived with her, his cousin Yvonne de Lestrange was very surprised when she saw drops of water falling from the ceiling. She hurried upstairs, opened Antoine's door, and found him asleep in the bathroom, the water still flowing. The same incident was repeated many times later, in particular, in the glorious days of Aeropostal. One morning in 1926, Saint-Aix's colleagues were surprised not to see him on the bus that was supposed to take them to the Toulouse-Montaudran base. Violating instructions, they left the bus and ran to his room, where they found him asleep with books floating around. The whole orchestra couldn't wake him up.

Menagerie at Cap Juby

There were many pets in Cap Juby. From Kiki, the monkey who used to place tarts on Mermoz's shoulders during breakfast, to Lola the monkey and Paf, the sassy cat, who made St. Ex's comrades say that in the realm of Juubi, there are not one ruler, but two. The Ark included the wildest animals, from a tame fox to a chameleon, a few gazelles, and a hyena that had to be left outside while eating because it smelled so bad.

Focuses

Saint-Exupéry often enlivened evenings with friends with card tricks. He mastered them - from the simplest to the most complex. This remarkable skill of his even allowed him to try his hand at professional tours, such as the Mystery of the Six Cards of Maldo or the Ghost Cards of Stanley Palm.

Terrible forgetfulness

Twice she nearly cost him his life. The first time, in 1933, it was in the Gulf of Saint-Raphael. In December, while testing a new model of the Latecoer seaplane, he forgot to close the hatch in the floor of the apparatus. When he splashed down, the water rushed inward, and the plane immediately sank. He only miraculously survived. The second time, in 1944, while flying the P-38 Lightning, he forgot to turn on the hydraulic brakes on his way back to base. On contact with the ground, the aircraft drove to the end of the runway and flew into a nearby olive grove, sustaining serious damage. Captain Saint-Exupery was almost fired after that. He forgot to check the fuel level, but he couldn't bring himself to stop reading books at the controls of the plane.

Songs

Saint-Exupery always sang something in the air. His repertoire ranged from sailors' songs to French chanson: for example, he sang the song "In the Shade of the Sweet Apple Tree" at night at the mouth of the Mekong. Not a single evening passed in Cap Juby or beer halls without such songs, which were immediately picked up in chorus by everyone around.

PLACES

Beer "Lipp"

Paris

Founded in Paris in 1880, this brasserie in the Saint-Germain-des-Pres district has a solid literary and political reputation. Before Antoine de Saint-Exupery, she was already a real "branch of the Chamber of Deputies." The writers Ramon Fernandez, André Gide and Pierre Drieux la Rochelle gathered there, as well as journalists like Jean-Gerard Fleury. Conversations with friends fed Saint-Exupery's thoughts, which he later developed in his notebooks. They dealt with political, philosophical, literary and moral aspects.

"Two monkeys"

Paris

In the Saint-Germain-des-Pres quarter, the restaurant "Two Monkeys" also had a solid literary reputation. Verlaine, Rimbaud and Mallarmé were the first to make it a rule to be there. When Antoine de Saint-Exupery met Jean Mermoz there, they began to sit there until the early morning, drinking, laughing, singing songs and talking loudly. Jean, who ate for two, liked to bet on the sum of the bill, proving that no one could swallow more than he did. Many then lost to him, including once Joseph Kessel. The conversation turned to general memories of Aeropostal: the desert and its mysteries, the Argentine pampas, the Rio de Oro and croissants eaten early in the morning after exhausting night flights.

Androuet

Paris

In the company of the "Parisian pedestrian" Leon-Paul Fargue, Saint-Exupery often visited the "Museum of Cheese". True to the expression that France is a huge cheese dish, he made a gastronomic tour of the country. And then the most poetic and incongruous names filled the temple of his glorious stomach. Here you can name the cheese "Rakotin", "Cons du Port-Aubrey" or "Clackbitt de Bourgogne". You can indulge yourself with the subtlety of Oleron cream cheese, the fruity aroma of Comte cheese, or the powerful taste of Saint-Nectaire cheese, which was present on the table of Louis XIV himself. Regardless of the regions through which he traveled, Auvergne was always at the center of his attention. "Cantal", which had to be tasted in the midst of its maturation, brought to Paris something of a shepherd's hut and a breath of winter wind.

"Frog"

NY

This French bar-restaurant was downstairs in the New York apartment of the sculptor Bernard Lamotte, an acquaintance of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The writer found there the French atmosphere, which he so lacked. He met French authors Pierre de Lanyux and Raoul de Roussy de Sale, sculptor Joe Davidson, actor Jean Gabin and actress Marlene Dietrich there. This place became a meeting place for French emigrants. They talked about their country, about the decisions that needed to be made in order to participate in its future.

THINGS

Bracelet

On September 7, 1998, when the crew of his boat was fishing off the island of Riou, near Marseille, Jean-Claude Bianco caught an object, about which he later said: “First, I rubbed the bracelet with my thumb, and I managed to read the word “Antoine ". When the words "Saint-Exupery (Consuelo)" appeared, I thought it was a joke." In addition to the missing pilot's full name and his wife's name in parentheses, he was also able to read two other lines: "386 Raynal & Hitchcock 4th Ave, New York, USA" is the name and address of his publisher . The discovery put an end to all the rumors that appeared after the death of Saint-Exupery.

Manuscripts

Antoine de Saint-Exupery took great care of his manuscripts. When he went to the United States at the very end of 1940, he took with him a thick black notebook, rolled up into a tube and tied with a rubber band cut from a bicycle tire: the Citadel manuscript. On the way back, he refused to leave the manuscript of The Military Pilot, which he called his "child". When he left the US to join the Free French, he took with him the manuscript of The Little Prince, a talisman that protected him from enemy attacks.

Notebooks

In the 1930s, Saint-Exupery always carried a small leather notebook with him. In it, he wrote down all his impressions and thoughts, as well as ideas that could be developed later. In total, he had a collection of five notebooks for the period from 1935 to 1940. But he never intended to publish them, nor did he seek to complete them, and this explains many of the incomplete sentences and clumsy language contained therein. However, in 1953 the Gallimard publishing house published the contents of these notebooks for the first time.

DISHES

Milk carp

The pilot was crazy about this soft whitish substance - stewed or simply scalded in boiling water.

Honni soit le v?g?tal

(Let it be a shame to all vegetable)

While hospitalized in New York, St. Ex liked to say that the sight of boiled carrots disgusted him. He extended this hatred of vegetables to Brussels sprouts, green beans, and broccoli, which threatened his meat-based diet.

Garlic Sause

Saint-Exupery accompanied them with most of the dishes, and he also consumed garlic sauce, covering a piece of fresh bread with it.

Grilled pork feet

In small Parisian restaurants owned by ethnic Bretons, the writer liked to order this dish, which was served in breadcrumbs, accompanied by mustard, thyme, bay leaves, parsley and garlic.

AIRCRAFT

Berto-Wroblewski W 3

Saint-Maurice-de-Remance, where Antoine de Saint-Exupéry spent his holidays, was located near the Bellevre airfield. The Villeurbanne industrialist Joseph Berteau developed aviation there. His sponsorship allowed the construction and testing of prototype aircraft designed by the Wroblewski brothers. A young vacationer went there showing an interest in mechanics. June 26, 1912 Gabriel Wroblewski invited him to make the first flight. And as the plane took off into the air, a calling was born.

Breguet XIV

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry encountered this type of aircraft in 1922, at the Avor training center, while he was a student observer. He then met him in 1926 when Didier Dora was hired by Latecoer. With its 300 hp engine. with., with a wingspan of 14 meters and a cruising speed of 125 km / h, it was the workhorse of the Line. After working in an engine dismantling workshop, it was on this that Saint-Ex made his first flight on the Line, from Toulouse to Perpignan, on December 15, together with Henri Guillaume. On it, he landed in October 1927 in Cap-Juby to become the head of the airfield there.

Latecoer 25 and 26

In 1929, Antoine de Saint-Exupery resumed flights on the route Toulouse - Casablanca and Casablanca - Port Etienne. The company has acquired new equipment: aircraft "Late 25" and "Late 26". With their 450 hp Renault engine. With. they could work on flights with a reduced number of landings in the direction of Africa and South America. They allowed radio communication with the crew, and this made it possible for the company to make dual flights. In 1931, Saint-Exupéry flew a Lathe 26 at night. To get to Port Etienne, he left Casablanca on Sunday evening. On the way, he changed apparatus in Agadir and stopped at Cap Juby. In flight, the engine made so much noise that he had to communicate with his radio operator, Jacques Neri, in writing.

Latecoer 293

In 1933, Antoine de Saint-Exupery was a test pilot for the Latecoer company. In this capacity, he made the first flights over the Mediterranean aboard the late 293 float-boat torpedo bomber, a prototype designed for naval aviation. Landing on water is different from landing on land. In order to facilitate takeoff, the floats rise at an angle with respect to the fuselage. This position requires a high angle splashdown, which is common for naval pilots, but requires extensive training for other pilots. Saint-Exupery, who had a legendary frivolity, could not get used to this. On December 21, 1933, he flew in the Gulf of Saint-Raphael, together with co-pilot Lieutenant Bataille and mechanic Gilbert Verger. Due to a poorly executed maneuver, the float cracked and the plane rolled over. Bataille and Verger freed themselves, but Saint-Exupery and the engineer Meyer were stuck in the cockpit. They did not drown only thanks to the help of rescuers.

Codron-Simun C 630 and 635

In 1924, Saint-Exupery wrote to his mother: "When I am rich, I will have my own small plane, and I will fly to you in San Rafael." In 1933 he purchased a Simun C 630, cream red with serial number F-ANRY. This plane was created in only 20 copies, and it appears in some scenes of "Southern Post", filmed in Morocco. Hired by Air France advertising in November, Saint-Ex took it on a lecture tour around the Mediterranean that took him to Cairo, Damascus, Beirut and Istanbul, and then to Athens. On the same device, he flew Paris - Saigon. This attempt was his last flight on this aircraft, for it crashed in the Jebel Hadid area, between Benghazi and Cairo. For five days he, along with the mechanic Prevost, walked, experiencing hallucinations and trying to find traces of people. The two crashed went east, in the direction that Guillaume had saved in the Andes. It all ended on January 2, when they were rescued by a Bedouin whose face became for them a symbol of planetary humanism.

Aboard a C 635, an aircraft registered in the "F-ANKX" series, St. Ex wanted to cross the Americas, from New York to Tierra del Fuego. He made in-flight stops in Washington, Atlanta, Houston, Brownsville, and Veracruz. He and Prevost had an accident in Guatemala City: during takeoff, an overloaded plane crashed at the very end of the runway, in a gravel pit. Only miraculously the plane did not catch fire. After that, the pilot remained in a coma for eight days and narrowly escaped amputation of his arm.

Bloch 174 (Bloch MV. 174)

The reconnaissance air group 2/33 was supplied with these aircraft, which were to replace the Potez 63-7 models. On board this aircraft, on March 29, 1940, Antoine de Saint-Exupery carried out his first reconnaissance flight near Arras. For him and for subsequent flights, he will be mentioned in the order for the army and receive the Military Cross. The Bloch 174 models were reliable and allowed to perform miracles of aerial acrobatics, and they had to withstand the German Messerschmitts. Photograph assignments behind enemy lines, even at very high altitudes, however, were almost suicidal. Only the sense of duty and courage of pilots such as St. Ex pushed them to this guaranteed kill.

Lockheed F-5B (photographic version of the P-38 Lightning)

It was on board these "light monsters" that Antoine de Saint-Exupery performed "dives" at very high altitudes. On July 31, 1944, he went on his tenth assignment to photograph military installations in the Grenoble-Annecy region. Surrounded by a "sea of ​​dials" and dressed in heavy overalls that could withstand -50 ° C in the cockpit, he took off at 8.35 in the morning. At 1300, the squadron commander, Captain René Gavualle, having received no news, began to look anxiously at the radars. The circumstances of this disappearance would then lead to countless rumors, all of which were later denied. The most meaningful was the version of suicide, to which some biographers are inclined to this day. This version is based on the desperate tone of his last letters.

MEMORY OF ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERIE

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry visited many places and many of them now bear his name. Civil society is also not far behind in this respect.

Statues:

Statue by Christian Guillaume depicting Saint-Exupéry and the Little Prince, in Place Bellecour, Lyon;

A statue in his honor in the middle of the Royal Garden in Toulouse;

Bust by Madeleine de Tezen in the square of Santiago de Chile in Paris;

Statue by Winifred DeWitt Ganz in the courtyard of the Northport City Library, home to Bevin House, in which The Little Prince was written in 1942-1943;

The inscription on the wall of the Pantheon: "In memory of Antoine de Saint-Exupery (poet, writer and aviator), who went missing during a reconnaissance flight on July 31, 1944";

Commemorative plaque on the house number 15 on Place Vauban in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, which indicates that Saint-Exupery lived here in 1934-1940;

A commemorative stele at the airport in Bastia.

Streets, squares, avenues, embankments and institutions:

Streets in Avignon, Brest, Laon, Lyon, Montreal (Canada), Friborg (Switzerland) and other cities;

The square in Cabris where his mother lived;

In Krasnoyarsk, a boulevard built in 2015 in the South Coast residential complex is named after Saint-Exupery;

In the Moscow region, in the village of Aviators (not far from the Kudinovo airfield), Saint-Exupery Street appeared in 2013;

Avenue in Lyon leading to Montaudran, where the factories and the airfield of the Latecoer company were located, where in 2010 a fresco (3 × 10 m) depicting Saint-Exupery was opened;

Embankment in Paris (XIV arrondissement);

About forty schools in Île-de-France alone; abroad: a school in Santiago de Chile, French lyceums in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) and Hamburg (Germany), a college in Rabat (Morocco), a school in Madrid (Spain), a school in Kigali (Rwanda);

Lyon Saint-Exupéry Airport.

Honors:

A mountain peak 2558 meters high in the province of Santa Cruz (Argentina) is named after Saint-Exupery;

Saint-Exupéry's portrait was featured on 50-franc banknotes issued by the Banque de France between 1996 and 2002;

Saint-Exupéry has been dedicated to several postage stamps issued since 1947 (the last one in 2000, on the 100th anniversary of his birth);

"The Human Planet" was the theme chosen for the World's Fair in Montreal (Canada) in 1967;

In 1975, the asteroid 2578, discovered by astronomer Tatyana Smirnova, was named after Saint-Exupery;

Museums of Saint-Exupéry exist in France, Russia, Japan, South Korea and Morocco;

In Ulyanovsk, there is a Linguistic and Cultural Center named after the writer on the basis of a local university;

In Moscow, a library is named after Saint-Exupery. This library cooperates with the Russian charitable foundation "The World of Saint-Exupery".

PHRASES AND APHORISMS BELONGING TO ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY

The greatest luxury in the world is the luxury of human communication.

You are forever responsible for those you have tamed.

If a person betrayed someone because of you, you should not associate life with him, sooner or later he will betray you because of someone.

To love is not to look at each other, but to look together in the same direction.

The kingdom of man is within us.

Each person has their own stars.

A person is just a node of relationships. And only relationships are important for a person.

Reason acquires value only when it serves love.

To live means to be born slowly.

Do not provide children with ready-made formulas, formulas are emptiness, enrich them with images and pictures in which connecting threads are visible.

Do not burden the children with a dead weight of facts, teach them techniques and methods that will help them comprehend.

Don't judge ability by ease of learning. The one who painfully overcomes himself and obstacles goes more successfully and further. The love of knowledge is the main criterion.

What will replace love? Nothing. And self-love is the opposite of love.

You cannot be faithful to one and unfaithful to the other. Faithful is always faithful.

It is much harder to judge oneself than others.

Only one heart is vigilant. You can't see the most important thing with your eyes.

Words only make it difficult to understand each other.

Never lose patience - this is the last key that opens the door.

You will not find immortality inside yourself.

You have to go through a lot to become a man.

What gives meaning to life gives meaning to death.

They die only for what makes life worth living.

A person recognizes himself in the struggle with obstacles.

With the death of each person, the unknown world dies.

When you let yourself be tamed, then it happens to cry.

Education takes precedence over education. Education creates a person.

When planting an oak, it is ridiculous to dream that you will soon find shelter in its shade.

In man, I love light. I don't care about the thickness of the candle. The flame will tell me if the candle is good.

To be human means to feel that you are responsible for everything.

Rules are like religious rites: they seem ridiculous, but they shape people.

Before you receive, you must give, and before you can live in a house, you must build it.

No, no one can replace a fallen comrade. You can't make old friends overnight.

Man is first and foremost a creator. A brotherhood can only be called the community of those people who work together.

A goal without a plan is just a dream.

Working only for the sake of material goods, we are building a prison for ourselves.

I don't value physical courage cheaply; life taught me what true courage is: it is the ability to resist the condemnation of the environment.

Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Truth is what makes the world simpler, not what turns it into chaos.

Judge yourself. This is the hardest part. It is much harder to judge oneself than others. If you can judge yourself correctly, then you are truly wise.

There is a hard and fast rule. Get up in the morning, wash your face, put yourself in order - and immediately put your planet in order.

Longing is when you long to see something, you don’t know what.

It may be beautiful to die in order to conquer new lands, but modern warfare destroys everything for which it is supposedly waged.

From the hour when the plane and mustard gas became weapons, the war became just a massacre. Victory goes to the one who rots last.

If I have changed and do not change anymore, if I do not move and do not strive for anything, how am I different from the dead?

You live in your actions, not in your body. You are your actions and there is no other you.

Although there is no price for human life, we always act as if there is something even more valuable.

All our wealth is dust and ashes, they are powerless to deliver to us what is worth living for.

Any civilization is built on what is required of people, and not on what is given to them.

A friend is first of all one who does not undertake to judge.

Distance is not measured by distance. Behind the fence of a garden, sometimes more secrets are hidden than behind the Chinese wall.

War is not a real feat, war is a surrogate for feat.

A simple game of heads or tails will not turn into a feat, even if the stake in it is life or death. War is not a feat. War is a disease. Like typhoid.

All adults were children at first, only few of them remember this.