Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I used to hate this story as we were made to memorise it at school, in our French lessons. 'Le Petit Prince' was Antoine de Saint-Exupery's most successful piece of writing. I guess it is up there with Beatrix Potter's 'Peter Rabbit' and A.A.Milne's 'Winnie the Pooh'. It certainly made his fortune and made his name known to children all over the world.
He was always a bit of a troubled soul, as was Consuelo, his wife and their marriage seemed doomed to be a disaster even before his tragic ending when the plane he was flying disappeared over the Mediterranean in 1944.
Antoine or Tonio as his wife affectionately called him, spent his childhood at the Chateau de Saint-Maurice de Remens, near Lyons, which, happily, is still standing. He grew up there with his four siblings and had a wonderful time. After his marriage to Consuelo they never seemed to be able to create a home together. They lived first at the Villa Mirador, outside Nice. After that they lived in Paris, Casablanca and New York but he never seemed able to settle anywhere. Consuelo would come home to find that he had emptied the house and they would move on to somewhere else. Even his old home, the Chateau at Saint-Maurice de Remens was sold and the entire contents disposed of.
Saint-Ex had three loves - his flying, his writing and his wife but he was never attached to any of his houses.
His marriage with Consuelo was tumultuous but lasted for thirteen years before his untimely death. He had several dices with death before the final fatal one but Consuelo, the Spanish lady with the flaming red hair, at the Couscous party that Nancie attended in 1934, lived on until 1979.
There is an extraordinary film on youtube of an interview that Consuelo de Saint-Exupery gave in the 1970s. She is speaking French with an Ecuadorian accent and I found it easier to read the Spanish subtitles on the screen than to follow her French! The red hair has faded but even in her old age she is a very handsome woman.

Consuelo de Saint-Exupery in 1934

I remember when I was a girl my Mother (Nancie) always said that Consuelo had the most amazing red hair. From what I have read about her she had quite a fiery relationship with her husband, Antoine de Saint-Exupery. She was born Consuelo Suncin de Sandoval in El Salvador, the daughter of a wealthy coffee- grower. She went abroad to study, in the USA (San Francisco), Mexico City and then France. She was married twice before she married Antoine de Saint-Exupery: first to a Mexican Army Captain, whom she met in the USA. They were divorced but apparently she told people that he had died in the Mexican Revolution. She later met and married a Guatamalan writer and diplomat called Enrique Gomez Carillo, in France. He was also a Journalist and died in 1927. Consuelo then went to live in Buenos Aires,where she lived until she met Saint-Exupery in 1931. When she eventually died, in 1979 she was buried in Paris, in Pere Lachaise Cemetery with Carillo, her second husband. Saint-Exupery had no know grave then, of course, as his body was never recovered from the wreckage of his plane after it crashed in the Mediterranean in July 1944, during the Second World War.
Consuelo's story of their love affair and ensuing turbulent marriage was published in the year 2000 as 'The Tale of the Rose'. It caused quite a sensation when it appeared. The manuscript was apparently discovered, in a trunk, in the attic, where it had lain for the twenty years since her death, by her heir, Jose Martinez-Fructuoso and his wife, Martine. Jose had worked for her for many years.
In 1998, a fisherman found a bracelet  entwined with seaweed and engraved with Consuelo's name, along with a fragment of a flying-suit, just off the French coast near Marseilles and not far from the supposed crash-site.
Two years later, the remains of a Lockheed Lightning P38, the type of plane that Saint-Exupery had been flying, were found in the same area.
In 2004 it was confirmed that the wreckage was indeed his plane, when the serial number was found, sixty years after his mysterious disappearance.
At one point Consuelo and Tonio, as she called him, lived in Morocco. They had been married at the Chateau d'Agay, home of her sister Gabrielle, on April 23rd 1931. Consuelo describes the chateau as being built 'in the shape of a prow' and 'like a ship jutting out into the sea'. The huge terrace was covered in beautiful rhododendrons and geraniums and overlooked the pure blue of the Mediterranean. What a fabulous setting for their wedding. It brings to mind the Citadel in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I wonder if Tolkien ever visited this part of the South of France? Sadly the chateau was destroyed in 1944, by the occupying German army during the Second World War but a new residence has been built on the same site by the descendants of the Agay Family.

Consuelo de Saint-Exupery and the Cous-cous party

Nancie accompanied Eleonore to afternoon tea at the farm belonging to the Prince and Princess of Bourbon-Parme and found them charming people. They had three children. She had to address them as 'Votre Altesse Royale' but nothing fazed this 22 year old scots girl from Kilmacolm. She took it all in her stride.
During her time at le Maquis at Valescure she also met Didi and Pierre d'Agay from the chateau d'Agay , Princess Mimi Galitzine, Princess Anne de Ligne, Consuelo de Saint-Exupery (wife of Antoine de Saint-Exupery who wrote ' Le Petit Prince') , Charles-Henri de Mirepoix, and Ebles' cousin, Bruno Sanderval. Admiral Godefroy, whom she met on her arrival was Eleonore's step-father.
In 1935 the Chabannes threw a Fancy-Dress Cous-cous party for their friends. at the Maquis. Consuelo de Saint-Exupery was a Spanish lady, Eliza Johnstone-Douglas was a Hawaiian lady, Eleonore an Arabian Princess, Ebles a Chinese Emperor, Grisel de Winton a Chinaman and Nancie was Cleopatra. Consuelo and her husband Antoine had lived in Morocco for a time so I wondered if the cous-cous idea came from her.
Didi, the wife of Pierre d'Agay was, in fact Antoine de Saint-Exupery's sister and so was Consuelo's sister in law. Charles-Henri de Mirepoix was related to the Chabannes family as his grandmother was Henriette Chabannes .I'm not sure if Nancie knew all the connections of family and friends.
Many of them are buried in the graveyard at Saint Raphael. Admiral Rene Godefroy is buried there with his wife Sybille, Eleonore's mother. She divorced Jean Goulden to marry Rene, his best friend.
Admiral Godefroy was Admiral of the French fleet during the Second World War. He was in charge of Force X at Alexandria, in Egypt. Born in 1885 he died in 1981, aged 96.
This graveyard is also the resting place of Coulou's parents in law, Donald and Jeanne Gurrey. As active members of the Anglican Church special permission was granted for them to be buried there.

Le Maquis, Valescure, near Saint Raphael in the South of France

 

 Nancie was now, in 1934, Nursery-Governess to two children. Coulou was five and Hugh was a new baby. 'Fisty' as he was nicknamed, gradually grew stronger. Nancie grew very attached to them both and her friendship with their mother Eleonore was to last sixty years or more.

Many visitors came to Le Maquis. A lot of them were English aristocrats, such as Lord and Lady Ashcombe, the de Wintons, the Johnstone Douglases and the Rawlinsons. There was quite an enclave of English folk, with writers and artists in particular. It was near here that F.Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby in 1925.

Nancie made several friends of her own age such as Elizabeth Johnstone-Douglas (later Lady Craven) and sisters Winifred and Grisel de Winton.

Eleonore's cousin Anne Frauger and her husband  (known as Froggie) lived in a farm just up the road. He worked in the local bank and they had three children.Their scottish Governess was called Sylvia Mackintosh but Nancie hadn't got much time for her. Ebles de Chabannes, however, had taken rather a fancy to Sylvia. Scottish Governesses were preferred to English ones because of their accents.

Nancie's new friend Grisel de Winton never married but her sister Winifred later married Charles Chichester, adopting two children.

Eleonore treated Nancie more like a companion and friend than just a Governess.She met all her friends and was invited to all the social events, very much as she had previously, with the Warden Family at Cannes and Le Havre.