Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Childhood, youth and education in school

Antoine Jean-Baptiste Marie Roger Vicomte de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyon on 29th June 1900. He was the third child out of five. Although his father died when he was just four years old Antoine’s childhood – until then spent at the family’s residence La Môle - was sheltered and happy. The family then moved to Le Mans in 1909 where Antoine was sent to a local school. Five years later a second move led the Saint-Exupérys to Ambérien-en-Bugey. In both of the two towns juvenile Antoine visited Jesuit Schools.  Finally Antoine attended a boarding school in Switzerland from 1915 to 1917. Here he achieved his Baccalauréat.

Attempts for a military career and military service for French air force

Antoine started to prepare for the service as a marine at Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris but eventually did not pass the exams after two years since he had inadequate marks in literature. It seems that he did not quite know what to do afterwards as he went to university to attend readings about architecture but as a mere visitor. Furthermore he tried to establish as a drawer, did drama and wrote poetry.

After all he began his military service in 1921 for the French air force where he was trained to be a pilot until 1923 when he suffered a skull fracture through a plane crash, was adjudged as not suited for further military work.

Working as a pilot and publishing literature

From then on Antoine worked as a deputy until he got jobs at different airlines. He also publishes his first literary work “L’aviateur”.  He went to Toulouse and worked as an aviator for transport flights to Dakar and Casablanca then he was transferred to Morocco.

In 1928 he published the novel “Courrier sud. The next year he became the director of an airline at Buenos Aires in Argentina. An air transport system for Patagonia was required.

It was already in 1931 that he returned to France and married author Consuelo Suncin Sandoval de Gómez. The couple never had children. He then worked on “Vol de nuit” and worked as a pilot for long-distance flights to Asia. From 1932 to 1939 he also worked as a journalist for different press institutions because the airline he had worked for was overtaken by Air France. At this stage his reputation as an author was already better than his image as an aviator. 

In 1935 he tried to reach the world record on a long-distance flight from Paris to Saigon but his plane crushed in the desert but he was able to do an emergency landing and survived. That caused further damage to his anyway endangered reputation. Stalin had invited him to Moscow in the same year. Antoine was obviously very impressed by the communistic principles as he published a praising piece of literature called “Moscou”, also visited the communist regime in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War and wrote two reports about those visits.

In February 1938 he wanted to set a world record when flying from New York City to Tierra del Fuego. Again his plane crushed – this time in Guatemala – and he was badly wounded. His novel “Terre des homes” deals with the experiences of the plane crush. The book was a bestseller and he won the “Grand Prix du Roman” with it.

Second World War and Death

Antoine was based at Algier from 1940 on to fly for exploration. He then emigrated and became a US citizen settling in New York. In 1943 he was for a start based at Algeria then at Sardegna.

Even though he was in war Antoine was very productive and wrote a lot such as his most memorable work “Le petite prince” which now is part of the world literature.

On 31^st July 1944 he started from Borgos, Corsica for his last flight. He did not come back.

Theories and investigations concerning Antoine’s death

Since Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was known as a famous author and infamous aviator not only in France but also abroad and his death had happened so sudden and was so mysterious there were many suggestions and theories about his passing, some of them wild and far away from any reason, others reasonable and realistic. A common assumption, almost a fact was that Antoine’s plane crushed – this time with deadly consequences. The most interesting question remained: How?

Some people had the hypothesis that it could have been suicide but he could also have been shot by another aviator probably of the German air force whose pilots were alarmed when the external plane appeared on their radar.

In 1998 a fishermen found a bracelet in the coastal area of Marseille with an inscription that read:

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Consuelo), c/o Reynal and Hitchcock Inc., 386 4^th Ave NYC

There were a lot of doubts on the originality of this bracelet although there is much information given which enhances the assumption that this bracelet really belonged to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: his name, his wife’s name, his publishing company and his address.

Eventually pieces of a plane’s wreck were located around the find spot of the bracelet. In October 2003 it became official that those were the rests of Antoine’s plane. Close to them there lay also rests of a German plane so there was the opportunity of a collision. Finally it turned out that the German wreck was older.

A German team searching for the reasons of Antoine’s death found the man who had shot Antoine the saint-Exupéry. It was a German aviator named Horst Rippert.

Commentary: I chose Antoine de Saint-Exupéry to be my person of the month because of personal reasons. His novel “Le petite prince” has accompanied me since my early childhood when it was first read to me by my parents and grandparents and then by Ulrich Mühe on an audio book. I have read it several times and took it with me for a reading competition at school. It took me very long to understand the course and the meaning of this quite complex story but I was never so utterly confused or irritated that I stopped reading or listening to it. I was just so fascinated by this innocent prince who seems so naïve and sad at first sight. Through the course of the story more and more personality layers are added to this anyway mysterious prince – I do not know what to call him instead, Antoine was right, he definitely is a prince – so I still love to read this book. I will read it to my children one day. It is just so impressive and I wanted to know who that man was – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. My mama had told me about him but I wanted to know more.

So I had to realise that he actually was not a good aviator. In fact he was infamous for his crushes and in the end the only reason why he was not fired was his fame as an author. I have to admit that this was a bit disappointing for me. Like many people I liked to see him as a hero. Now he is a very sad and somehow lonely person in my eyes although I did not find that much about his private life. But this new image of him makes “Le petite prince” even more real for me – as it deals with human emotions such as loneliness and deep sadness is it more believable if told by a lonely and sad person than by a splendid war hero. 

To live is to be slowly born. 

Antoine de Saint-Evupéry