Biography
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.
Sweet years
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.
Not an industrious student
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.