Saint-exupery: A Biography

by Stacy Schiff

  51. Several times he visited: I owe these recollections to Katherine Ethier Roy, interviews of September 3, 1990, and September 25, 1993.

  52. He was forced to consult: Interviews with Bita Dobo, August 29, 1993, and with Hedda Sterne, October 25, 1993.

  53. “It makes you a bit”: SE to Hitchcock, ANAT.

  54. “Odd planet”: Drouot, December 4, 1991, sale, item no. 30, letter 3.

  55. She may have put forth: Interview with Elizabeth Darbee, October 15, 1991.

  56. Galantière was to say: Galantière, Reader’s Digest, December 1957, 178.

  57. most difficult thing about writing: Baillargeon, Amérique Française, op cit.

  58. “Kings always wear”: Breaux, 75.

  59. Originally he offered: This text—along with its drawings—was part of an Arts Anciens sale, Geneva, November 22, 1986, item no. 22A.

  60. “My heart begins”: Interview with Silvia Reinhardt, February 10, 1992.

  61. later he wrote: SE to Silvia Reinhardt, from Algiers, 1943. The letter has been sold, although Mrs. Reinhardt kindly shared a copy.

  62. “Words,” counsels the Little Prince’s fox: LP, 84. “What is essential”: LP, 87.

  63. “I wanted a hut”: de Rougemont, 521.

  64. Maurois felt afterward: Maurois wrote of the visit in many places. See especially “Saint-Exupéry,” Les Nouvelles Littéraires, November 7, 1946, and his article on Consuelo in Pour la Victoire, October 6, 1945, 7.

  65. He took away: de Rougemont, 521. “You are less”: ibid., 530.

  66. “Mademoiselle, I am a very”: Breaux, 36. Breaux’s modest book—never published in France—provides an invaluable portrait of the celebrated English student in America. For more on Breaux see also Barbara Marhoefer, “Eatons Neck 1942: The Little Prince Is Born,” The New York Times, November 28, 1971, 12.

  67. “All children do not” and “Ah, Mademoiselle”: Breaux, 48.

  68. “She does not like”: Breaux, 60, 105.

  69. “It is irritating”: Albert Guérard, The New York Times Book Review, December 15, 1946, 12. See also Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, Kingdom of the Rocks (New York: Random House, 1946). The novel’s translator, Katherine Woods, had been the translator of The Little Prince.

  70. “There are times”: Rose Feld, Weekly Book Review, December 29, 1946, 2.

  71. She reminded Guérard: Albert Guérard, The New York Times Book Review, December 15, 1946, 12.

  72. “never to really seem”: From a November 17, 1972, letter from Adèle Breaux to Howard Scherry.

  73. “a grotesque pipe dream” to “So that’s how it is!” Galantière, The Atlantic, April 1947, 140–41.

  74. listening in on: See for example RG226, M1642, Roll no. 105, NA, a report of a nine-minute telephone conversation taped and reported on by the OSS, November 13, 1942.

  75. “I am more devoted”: See Drouot catalogue of May 20, 1976.

  76. “I am so alone”: Ader Picard Tajan catalogue, Drouot sale, July 6, 1984, item no. 17, letter 2.

  77. “an odd kind of desert”: Ader Picard Tajan catalogue, Drouot sale, July 6, 1984, item no. 13.

  78. “We never know”: SE to Bernard Lamotte, n.d. I am indebted to Dorothy Barclay Thompson for having produced this sister text to The Little Prince.

  79. asked a diplomat friend: Charpentier, Icare VII, 56.

  80. He confessed to Adèle Breaux: Breaux, 81.

  81. “a small Pacific islet”: LP, 68.

  82. “I asked him” and “I’m the Little Prince”: John Phillips, from pages that appeared as an essay in his Odd World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959). The text is available in French in Phillips, Les derniers jours de Saint-Exupéry (Éditions Parkett/Der Alltag: Zurich, 1989).

  83. “You are an extraterrestrial” and “Yes, yes, it is true”: Raoul Aglion, letter to author, September 26, 1990.

  84. “lived his life alone”: LP, 5. “Be my friends”: LP, 76.

  85. His gestures: Interview with Hedda Sterne, October 25, 1993.

  86. his speech patterns: Interview with André Henry, January 23, 1991.

  87. “It is without precedent”: Dony, 568.

  88. “If I knew how”: To Hedda Sterne, Hedda Sterne collection, AAA.

  89. offering up his photograph: Pierre Guillain de Bénouville, EG, 492.

  90. SE responded without: Israël, Icare IV, 59–60. On his disdain for Paris-Soir, EG, 391.

  91. He assured a woman friend: Ader Picard Tajan catalogue, Drouot sale, July 6, 1984, item no. 21. SE felt compelled to attempt to explain his relationship with his wife to a lover named Suzanne.

  92. He described his wife: Interview with Madame de B, December 4, 1991.

  93. the Little Princess: Interview with René Gavoille, January 9, 1992.

  94. he called Hélène Lazareff: Interview with Dorothy Barclay Thompson, February 5, 1993.

  95. “You would have to be” and “The Little Prince was wrong”: From Dorothy Barclay Thompson’s inscribed copy of the book.

  96. He was indignant and “We were twelve years old”: Annabella, interview of December 12, 1991.

  97. “recording his voice”: I am grateful to Selden Rodman for having shared with me his journal entries of 1941 concerning SE. This one dates from April 4, 1941.

  98. Gleefully he directed: Galantière, The Atlantic, April 1947, 135.

  99. “wave-maker”: Paul-Émile Victor, Icare V, 25.

  100. The Reynals found their author: Interview with Elizabeth Darbee, September 7, 1993.

  101. Boname was skeptical: Boname, Icare V, 108.

  102. Galantière’s favorite: Galantière, The Atlantic, April 1947, 140.

  103. fish-shaped coffin: Chevrier, 238.

  104. “if not pro-Vichy”: T-5297, 0–15, May 27, 1942, Intelligence report from Thomas to Dostert, NA. Generally Fleury’s behavior was thought to be suspect; the friendship concerned various State Department officials. See Dewitt Poole’s memo to Donovan of March 13, 1942, OSS 57–75, Central File no. 759 (Entry 92, Box 8), NA.

  105. “So I’m a bit scatter-brained”: I am grateful to Elizabeth Darbee for having shared a copy of this undated note of apology from SE.

  106. “like a captain”: A portion of SE’s letter to Silvia was reproduced in the auction catalogue from the sale of Silvia’s papers, Drouot, May 20, 1976, no. 52.

  107. “Either he dominated”: Maurois, From Proust to Camus, 203.

  108. “I think it is fair”: Renoir, Icare V, 29.

  109. “I am perfectly delighted”: Hitchcock to Max Becker, October 16, 1942. I am indebted to Royce Becker and Aleta Daley for having provided a copy of the fully executed contract.

  110. “They are barbarians” and “Yes, barbarians”: Paul-Émile Victor, Icare V, 25.

  111. “Well, I hope that Vichy”: Jean Lacouture, Charles de Gaulle, vol. 1 (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1984), 607.

  112. the United States fell back on policies: Interview with Raoul Aglion, September 27, 1991.

  113. “Our real chief and “The State Department”: SE, “An Open Letter to Frenchmen Everywhere,” The New York Times Magazine, November 29, 1942.

  114. open to ridicule: Fritsch-Estrangin, 82.

  115. One former French air force officer: The New York Times, December 7, 1942, 26.

  116. Pierre Benedictus—who claimed to have been on the Dunkerque airfield at about the time SE was overflying Arras—gently reprimanded his colleague for having remained “aloof, on neutral ground.”

  117. “We cannot, however touching”: Henry Bernstein, The New York Times, December 6, 1942, 23.

  118. “We live in sad times”: Aglion, Roosevelt and de Gaulle, 146.

  119. made the unassailable point: Jacques Maritain, “Il faut parfois juger,” Pour la Victoire, December 19, 1942, 1.

  120. say what you will: SE to Maritain, EG

  121. We probably do disagree: SE’s letters to Breton can be found at the Bibliothèque Jacques Doucet in Paris.

  122. no more c
harming residence: de Rougemont, 526. I am grateful to Max Becker for having handed on a copy of the lease for Consuelo’s apartment at 240 Central Park South. It was canceled as of November 30, 1942.

  123. a definition of perfect taste: Breaux, 129.

  124. “I consider that”: ibid., 134.

  125. “I understand why you are upset”: The bulk of this letter was published in the catalogue for the Drouot sale, May 20, 1976, item no. 47.

  126. On the thirty-first the SEs: I owe the description of this evening to a magnificent letter from Mary Evans Boname, March 18, 1991. Consuelo bragged to Helen Wolff of the oeufs-en-gelée attack, letter to author, December 10, 1990.

  127. “For goodness’ sake!” Interview with Boname, March 19, 1991.

  128. “If they continue to mechanize”: Cited in Fleury, Icare V, 37.

  129. he had drafted a proposal: Ader Picard Tajan catalogue, Drouot sale, July 6, 1984, item no. 43. SE toyed with the idea of a squadron of French volunteers fighting under the American flag, December 1941. Also OSS files (INT, 12FR21), NA. On April 13, 1942, John C. Wiley reported to Donovan that SE and Paul-Émile Victor had recently told their dinner companions they were “anxious to enter once more into active service. They would like to form a French foreign legion marching with them.”

  130. Helen Gahagan Douglas: Interview with Elizabeth Darbee, August 28, 1993.

  131. According to Maurois: André Maurois, Mémoires (Paris: Flammarion, 1970), 353.

  132. “the pull to sacrifice”: Lindbergh, War Within and Without, 309.

  133. “If I write a page”: OTAGE, original manuscript. SE’s pages and pages of draft manuscript—and the proofs of the very affecting original—can be found in Washington, D.C., AAA.

  134. “lovely shipload of experiences”: OTAGE, 400 (translation mine).

  135. “If I differ from you”: OTAGE, 404 (translation mine).

  136. “Words,” he told Yvonne Michel: Interview with Yvonne Michel, January 4, 1991.

  137. In better spirits: EG, 465.

  138. better off without him: Ader Picard Tajan catalogue, Drouot sale, July 6, 1984, item no. 5.

  139. “I’m off to the war”: SE to Consuelo, EG, 353.

  140. visited the Richelieu: Cate, 482.

  141. “In what branch?” and “In the air force”: Interview with Georges Perrin, January 16, 1991.

  142. “SE changed people”: Galantière, Reader’s Digest, December 1957, 175. Many of SE’s friends and acquaintances echoed these words in interviews.

  143. without seeing his publisher: Interview with Joan Rich, August 7, 1991.

  144. a shopping list: Dorothy Barclay Thompson kindly shared the list, which she asked Hélène Lazareff if she might keep and which remains in her possession.

  145. “intellectual euphoria”: De Rougemont, 530.

  146. Beaming, he received: Ping Lawrence re-created the evening, interview of April 1, 1991.

  147. “Don’t linger like this”: LP, 40.

  148. “Hers is the worst case”: Breaux, 140.

  149. “like an amoeba” and “I wish I had”: Silvia Reinhardt, interviews of September 26, 1991, and November 6, 1991.

  150. A little after noon: I am grateful to Dr. Sheldon Sommers for having shared his memories of the Stirling Castle and SE in sickbay, letters of January 8, 1991, July 16, 1991, and August 29, 1993.

  151. “Reviewers and critics”: Reynal & Hitchcock’s two-page advertisement appeared in Publishers Weekly, February 20, 1943.

  152. “must have been miserable” and “throw himself into self-sacrifice”: Lindbergh, War Within and Without, 338.

  153. distillation of suffering: P. L. Travers, letter to Adèle Breaux, May 30, 1970.

  154. “So I lived my whole life”: LP, 5.

  155. “all fairy tales”: P. L. Travers, New York Herald Tribune Books, April 11, 1943, 4–5.

  156. summoned his business partner: On the ill-fated romance between Orson Welles and The Little Prince, see Barbara Learning, Orson Welles (New York: Viking Penguin, 1985), 270–71. I am grateful to Barbara Learning for having reminded me of this enthusiasm on Welles’s part and to Rebecca Campbell Cape at the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, for having supplied the supporting documents. Welles’s script is at the Lilly Library. Welles purchased broadcast rights in WSS and NF in November 1942 for three hundred dollars.

  157. she claims she never knew: Silvia Reinhardt, interview of March 23, 1992.

  158. “the joy of a crusade”: SE, “Lettre à un Américain,” EG, 495.

  159. liturgical chant: See Henry Elkin, EG, 355–57.

  XVII INTO THIN AIR

  1. One young American diplomat: See Kenneth Pendar, Adventure in Diplomacy (London: Cassel & Company, 1966). Equally helpful as background for this chapter were The War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959), Jean Monnet, Memoirs (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1978), Robert Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1964), and Pierre Sonneville, Les Combattants de la Liberté (Paris: Éditions de la Table Ronde, 1968).

  2. A. J. Liebling tried: Liebling, 219.

  3. to his amazement: Gavoille, interview of January 9, 1992. Also Icare VI, 30.

  4. “Well, see to it!”: Gelée, Icare VI, 82.

  5. “Here, per our agreement”: René Chambe, Icare VI, 38.

  6. “He will go back”: Lindbergh, War Within and Without, 341.

  7. The neighboring squadron: See Jules Roy, Saint-Exupéry (Paris: La Manufacture, 1990), 45.

  8. Wilbur Wright’s plane: Interview with Leon Gray, July 16, 1991.

  9. fill out his paperwork: Interview with John R. Hoover, August 9, 1991.

  10. to remember vividly: Roy, 47–48. Roy has offered several variations on this tale. The only one that differs substantially was written nearly fifty years later and appears in Mémoires barbares (Paris: Albin Michel, 1989), 222–23.

  11. “How old are you” to “It seems you think me”: Chambe, Icare VI, 39.

  12. “Here I am”: ibid., 40.

  13. “A scarecrow”: He used the expression repeatedly; see for example EG, 462.

  14. “le mur élastique”: Comte, Icare VI, 60.

  15. French barely respected it: Sonneville, 266.

  16. at the Interallié: Pendar, 182–83.

  17. “Sectarianism always”: Cited without Roy’s name in EG, 369.

  18. He came down: François Laux, Icare VI, 42. See also Chassin’s version, Forces Aériennes Françaises, April 1959.

  19. On another training flight: Reynaud-Fourton provides the best account of this incident, which he retells in SE’s words, Icare VII, 63.

  20. One American major: Vernon V. Robison recounts the priceless story of the visit of the unilingual American major to the unilingual French squadron in Icare VI, 113.

  21. He was given six choices: Interview with Vernon V. Robison, December 28, 1990.

  22. except take off on schedule: Interviews with Leon Gray, July 16, 1991, and September 9, 1991.

  23. “The quicker the SOBs”: Letter from Dino A. Brugioni, January 1994.

  24. “he didn’t know him”: Interview with Leon Gray, July 16, 1991.

  25. begging Robert Murphy and “an absurd myth”: The letter is reproduced in Icare VI, 43.

  26. a very different picture: The letter to Consuelo appears in part in EG, 353.

  27. enough sulfa drugs: Interview with Madame de B, January 17, 1992. In his biography, Pélissier attests that SE—moderate in few things—habitually abused medications. Four days later: SHAA file. SE was cleared to fly by the medical examiner on his birthday, June 29, 1943. His 1943–44 carnet de vol is invaluable in charting his air- and ground time over these months, SHAA.

  28. He was quick to inform: I am grateful to Royce Becker for supplying a copy of SE’s June 8, 1943, letter to his publisher, who sent a copy on to Becker. An excerpt appears in EG, 371–73.

  29. A canny publisher: Hitchco
ck’s August 3, 1943, response to SE’s letter—and the July 19 press release—are in the HBJ archives.

  30. He hated: To Pélissier, EG, 373. Similarly, from an eloquent, unsent letter, EG, 376.

  31. scaling the Himalayas: To Pélissier, EG, 373.

  32. “a sort of flying torpedo”: EG, 381.

  33. A parachutist: Maurice Guernier, EG, 387.

  34. could not get over: Diomède Catroux, Icare VI, 70.

  35. allergic to the aircraft’s: Henri Billard, EG, 396.

  36. “They were firing” and “My dear friend”: Quoted in Pélissier, 45–46.

  37. cranked down the window and “This is very, very difficult”: Interview with Dunn, March 1, 1991.

  38. As the pilot described: See John Phillips’s Odd World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959). I am hugely indebted to John Phillips, who is blessed with total recall, for a great number of details in this chapter.

  39. “jabbered and hollered”: Interview with Leon Gray, July 16, 1991.

  40. Dunn maintained: Interview with Frank Dunn, July 16, 1991.

  41. “Yes, the Lightning would never fly”: SE to Phillips, Phillips interview of December 4, 1990.

  42. “If he was taken”: Interview with Gray, July 16, 1991.

  43. “I want to die” to “The answer is no, no, and no”: Dunn, interviews of March 1, 1991, and March 11, 1991. “Sir, I want to die” and “I don’t give a damn”: Gray, July 16, 1991.

  44. with which he had been pleased and “This Frenchman”: Chambe, Icare VI, 40. Dalloz felt that Giraud admired the book for the same reason.

  45. “served as a symbol”: The War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle (Unity), 143.

  46. intended to decamp: See Chassin, Icare VI, 146. Madame de B provided the best description of the “underheated linen closet,” interview of January 22, 1991. Chassin reported on the chaos therein, Forces Aériennes Françaises, April 1959.

  47. “It’s as if I were”: EG, 407. The bulk of the dispirited correspondence reproduced in EG—the best barometer of SE’s mood, which went from bad to worse—was addressed to Madame de B.