Showing posts with label Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Show all posts

Friday, 22 August 2025

'LE PETIT PRINCE', THE PURSUIT OF TRUE MEANING IN LIFE

The short trip to Lyon is arriving to its end. Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have said goodbye to their friends -the Little Prince, Antoine, the Fox and the Rose- and they are waiting for their plane in Lyon's International Airport, also known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
 
Claire and The Grandma have an important message:
 
They have been wonderful days where we have seen fascinating places and met lovely people. Thank you to everyone for your help in this search. To those who have hosted us, to those who have transported us up and down, to those who have made a place for us among the most amazing and kind supporters, and to all those who have dedicated a moment of your time to leave us a message.

Thanks to your invaluable help in finding our beloved Northern Star (Impressive, Spectacular, Enchanting) who we had been looking for and who we finally found in this beautiful city.

As our Little Prince told us: 'For some, who are travellers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. The stars are lit so that everyone can one day find their own'.
 
We have found our Northern Star and we can assure she shines strongly. She is fine, happy and full of energy, and we know she will be one of the brightest stars on our firmament, because she already is.
 
Ancient cultures thought that the Northern Star gives hope and stability, and that it serves as a beacon of hope during difficult times. It  reminds us that constancy exists even in chaos. It is a symbol of higher wisdom and purpose in dark times.
 
The stars are points of contact with the supernatural. According to Greco-Roman mythology, the giant Argos had a hundred eyes and always had half of them open. Hera (Juno) ordered him to watch over Io, who was being pursued by her husband Zeus (Jupiter), but the god ordered Hermes (Mercury) to cut off his head. Then Hera placed the hundred eyes of Argos on the peacock's tail. Thus, the stars are considered the eyes of the night or the watchful gaze of God.

A group of stars can represent a spiritual army that fights against darkness. The Perseids, a shower of stars or tears of Saint Lawrence, is a phenomenon that can be observed at the end of summer. Now, if we consider an isolated star or a galaxy, it often takes on the value of a guide like the Star of Bethlehem, the Milky Way or the Northern Star
 
We trust in our Northern Star, and we will return to see her as times as we could.
 

Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900-31 July 1944), known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator.

Born in Lyon to an aristocratic family, Saint-Exupéry trained as a commercial pilot in the early 1920s, working airmail routes across Europe, Africa, and South America. Between 1926 and 1939, four of his literary works were published: the short story The Aviator, novels Southern Mail and Night Flight, and the memoir Wind, Sand and Stars

Saint-Exupéry joined the French Air Force for World War II and flew reconnaissance missions until France's armistice with Germany in 1940. After being demobilised by the Air Force, Saint-Exupéry lived in exile in the United States between 1941 and 1943 and helped persuade it to enter the war. During this time, his works Flight to Arras and The Little Prince were published.

Saint-Exupéry returned to combat by joining the Free French Air Force in 1943, despite being past the maximum age for a war pilot and in declining health.

On 31 July 1944, during a reconnaissance mission over Corsica, Saint-Exupéry's plane disappeared: it is presumed to have crashed. Debris from the wreckage was discovered near Marseille in 2000, but the cause of the crash remains unknown.

More information: The National WWII Museum-New Orleans 

Le Petit Prince, The Little Prince in English, is a novella written and illustrated by French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 and was published posthumously in France following liberation; Saint-Exupéry's works had been banned by the Vichy Regime

The story follows a young prince who visits various planets, including Earth, and addresses themes of loneliness, friendship, love, and loss. Despite its style as a children's book, The Little Prince makes observations about life, adults, and human nature.

The Little Prince became Saint-Exupéry's most successful work, selling an estimated 140 million copies worldwide, which makes it one of the best-selling in history. The book has been translated into over 505 different languages and dialects worldwide, being the second most translated work ever published, trailing only the Bible. The Little Prince has been adapted to numerous art forms and media, including audio recordings, radio plays, live stage, film, cinema television, ballet, and opera.

The story of The Little Prince is recalled in a sombre, measured tone by the pilot-narrator, in memory of his small friend, a memorial to the prince -not just to the prince, but also to the time the prince and the narrator had together. The Little Prince was created when Saint-Exupéry was an ex-patriate and distraught about what was going on in his country and in the world. According to one analysis, the story of the Little Prince features a lot of fantastical, unrealistic elements.... You can't ride a flock of birds to another planet... The fantasy of the Little Prince works because the logic of the story is based on the imagination of children, rather than the strict realism of adults.

An exquisite literary perfectionist, akin to the 19th century French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, Saint-Exupéry produced draft pages covered with fine lines of handwriting, much of it painstakingly crossed out, with one word left standing where there were a hundred words, one sentence substitut[ing] for a page... He worked long hours with great concentration

According to the author himself, it was extremely difficult to start his creative writing processes. The French author frequently wrote at night, usually starting at about 11 p.m. accompanied by a tray of strong black coffee. 

A native speaker of French, Saint-Exupéry was never able to achieve anything more than haltingly poor English. Adèle Breaux, his young Northport English tutor to whom he later dedicated a writing (For Miss Adèle Breaux, who so gently guided me in the mysteries of the English language), related her experiences with her famous student as Saint-Exupéry in America, 1942–1943: A Memoir, published in 1971.

Saint-Exupéry's prodigious writings and studies of literature sometimes gripped him, and on occasion he continued his readings of literary works until moments before take-off on solitary military reconnaissance flights, as he was adept at both reading and writing while flying. 

Saint-Exupéry frequently flew with a lined carnet (notebook) during his long, solo flights, and some of his philosophical writings were created during such periods when he could reflect on the world below him, becoming 'enmeshed in a search for ideals which he translated into fable and parable'.

In April 2017, The Little Prince became the world's most translated non-religious book, with translations into 300 languages. This number had risen to 600 by November 2024.

More information: Medium

Pour les uns qui voyagent, les étoiles sont des guides. 
Pour d’autres elles ne sont rien que de petites lumières.
Les étoiles sont éclairées pour que 
chacun puisse un jour retrouver la sienne.
 
 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Wednesday, 20 August 2025

FROM LUGDUNUM TO LIYON, THE CAPITAL OF THE GAULS

Today, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have arrived to Lyon, where they are going to spend three intense days accompanied by The Little Prince and Antoine, two old friends who will guide them to find and see a spectacular Northern Star who is shining very intensely in this part of France.

Liyon in Franco-Provençal, Lyon in French, is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, 391 km southeast of Paris, 278 km north of Marseille, and 113 km southwest of Geneva, Switzerland.

The City of Lyon is the third-largest city in FranceLyon and 58 suburban municipalities have formed since 2015 the Metropolis of Lyon, a directly elected metropolitan authority now in charge of most urban issues.

Lyon is the prefecture of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and seat of the Departmental Council of Rhône (whose jurisdiction, however, no longer extends over the Metropolis of Lyon since 2015).

The capital of the Gauls during the Roman Empire, Lyon is the seat of an archbishopric whose holder bears the title of Primate of the Gauls

Lyon became a major economic hub during the Renaissance. The city is recognised for its cuisine and gastronomy, as well as historical and architectural landmarks; as such, the districts of Old Lyon, the Fourvière hill, the Presqu'île and the slopes of the Croix-Rousse are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List

Lyon was historically an important area for the production and weaving of silk

yon played a significant role in the history of cinema since Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the cinematograph there. The city is also known for its light festival, the Fête des lumières, which begins every 8 December and lasts for four days, earning Lyon the title of Capital of Lights.

Economically, Lyon is a major centre for banking, chemical, pharmaceutical and biotech industries. The city contains a significant software industry with a particular focus on video games; in recent years it has fostered a growing local start-up sector. The home of renowned universities and higher education schools, Lyon is the second-largest student city in France, with a university population of nearly 200,000 students within the Metropolis of Lyon.

Lyon hosts the international headquarters of Interpol, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, as well as Euronews. According to the Globalization and World Rankings Research Institute.

The name of the city has taken the forms Lugdon, Luon, and since the 13th century, Lyon. The Gallic Lugdun or Lugdunon that was Latinized in Roman as Lugdunum is composed of two words. The first may be the name of the Celtic god Lug (in charge of order and law), or the derived word lugon, meaning crow (the crow being the messenger of Lug), but might also be another word lug, meaning light. The second is dunos (fortress, hill). The name thus may designate the hill of Fourvière, on which the ancient city of Lyon is founded, but could mean hill of the god Lug, hill of the crows or shining hill.

Alternatively Julius Pokorny associates the first part of the word with the Indo-European radical *lūg (dark, black, swamp), the basis of the toponyms Ludza in Latvia, Lusatia in Germany (from Sorbian Łužica), and several places in the Czech Republic named Lužice; it could then also be compared to Luze in Franche-Comté and various hydronyms such as Louge.

Further down, in the current Saint-Vincent district, was the Gallic village of Condate, probably a simple hamlet of sailors or fishermen living on the banks of the Saône. Condate is a Gallic word meaning confluence, from which the Confluence district gets its name.

In Roman times the city was called Caput Galliae, meaning capital of the Gauls. As an homage to this title, the Archbishop of Lyon is still called the Primate of Gaul.

During the revolutionary period, Lyon was renamed Commune-Affranchie (Emancipated Commune) on 12 October 1793 by a decree of the Convention Nationale. It resumed its name in 1794, after the end of the Terror.

Lyon is called Liyon in Franco-Provençal.

The historic site of Lyon was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998. In its designation, UNESCO cited the exceptional testimony to the continuity of urban settlement over more than two millennia on a site of great commercial and strategic significance. The specific regions comprising the historic site include the Roman district and Fourvière, the Renaissance district (Vieux Lyon), the silk district (slopes of Croix-Rousse), and the Presqu'île, which features architecture from the 12th century to modern times.

More information: Lugdunum-Musée et Théâtres Romains

What saves a man is to take a step. 
Then another step. 
It is always the same step, 
but you have to take it.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Wednesday, 5 June 2019

THE ASTRONAUT, THE WISE, THE ROBOT & THE GRANDMA

Old memories in Eramprunyà Castle, Gavà
Today, The Grandma has visited Eramprunyà Castle again. She enjoyed her last visit some days ago and she has wanted to return. The Grandma has had a meeting with some friends from Gavà and Begues and she has also met three new friends, Ю́рий aka Iuri, Myrddin aka Merlin and Johnny 5.

Ю́рий is a Russian pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space; Myrddin is an enchanter featured in Arthurian legend and medieval Welsh poetry and Johnny 5 is an American robot from Astoria, Oregon.

Perhaps thanks to the environment, perhaps thanks to her new friends, The Grandma has remembered one of the most beautiful masterpieces in literature of all times, The Little Prince written by Antoine de Saint-Eixupéry, a wonderful novel that talks about friendship, feelings, knowledge and experiences, summing up, it talks about life.


The Little Prince is an incredible novel that must be read slowly enjoying its literature and its drawings and understanding its meaning, a deep reflexion about human relationships.

It has been a great pleasure to visit Eramprunyà Castle again and meet old and new friends. The Grandma has got amazing memories of this experience and she is very sure she is going to return very soon.

As The Little Prince said, It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important. It is the time we have dedicated to learn new things, that makes this new knowledge so important and this time has been a fantastic experience. Thanks to all Gavà Team.

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, in Russian Ю́рий Алексе́евич Гага́рин (9 March 1934-27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. 

Ю́рий Алексе́евич Гага́рин
Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour.

Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Gagarin later served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was subsequently named after him.

Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting crashed. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale awards the Yuri A. Gagarin Gold Medal in his honour.

More information: SISTER

Merlin, in Welsh Myrddin, is a legendary figure best known as an enchanter or wizard featured in Arthurian legend and medieval Welsh poetry. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures.

Myrddin
Geoffrey combined existing stories of Myrddin Wyllt or Merlinus Caledonensis, a North Brythonic prophet and madman with no connection to King Arthur, with tales of the Romano-British war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus to form the composite figure he called Merlin Ambrosius, in Welsh Myrddin Emrys. Geoffrey's rendering of the character was immediately popular, especially in Wales. Later writers expanded the account to produce a fuller image. Merlin's traditional biography casts him as a cambion: born of a mortal woman, sired by an incubus, the non-human from whom he inherits his supernatural powers and abilities.

Merlin matures to an ascendant sagehood and engineers the birth of Arthur through magic and intrigue. Later authors have Merlin serve as the king's advisor and mentor to the knights until he is bewitched and forever sealed or killed by the Lady of the Lake. He is popularly said to be buried in the magical forest of Brocéliande.

More information: ITV

Number 5 or the name chosen by Johnny 5, is a fictional character from the movie Short Circuit (1986) and Short Circuit 2 (1988).

Johnny 5
The character was created by the writers Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson. His voice is played by actor Tim Blaney in his original version.

It is a robot originally created for military purposes, after being suddenly gifted with consciousness after being struck by lightning. Therefore, it is considered alive: it has emotions and is autonomous.

Short Circuit is a 1986 US comic science fiction film directed by John Badham and written by S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock.

The film's plot centers upon an experimental military robot that is struck by lightning and gains a more humanlike intelligence, with which it embarks to explore its new state.

Short Circuit stars Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, Fisher Stevens, Austin Pendleton and G. W. Bailey, with Tim Blaney as the voice of the robot named Johnny 5. A sequel, Short Circuit 2, was released in 1988.

More information: Johnny-Five


And now here is my secret, a very simple secret:
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint-Eixupéry

Friday, 27 April 2018

SUSANA JONES: 'VOLE PETITE AILE, CHANGE D'UNIVERS'

George Cayley's Monoplane Glider
I'm Susana Jones. Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called The History of Aviation. It was a picture of George Cayle's Monoplane Glider. Here is a copy of the picture...

Some months ago, I joined to The Jones family in the search of the lost dream. I have been living with them until today. I've just decided to follow my own path and do something that I really love: flying.

Yes, I'm a professional pilot who found her inspiration in the figures of Hélène Boucher and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I want to fly over these wonderful French lands, over the Loira's Castles, over Paris, over Britain, Alsace, the French Basque Country and cross Occitania and French Catalan Lands to arrive to Gulf of Lion, where I want to join my soul in that point where sky becomes heaven. 

Yes, I want to stay with my little prince and share as moments as I can with him because he's my rose and I want to see the heaven in his eyes.


Susana Jones and her Little Prince
The Jones are going to continue their searching, knowing that the most important isn't what are you going to find when you arrive but all the experiences that you have lived while you were arriving.

This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world. It is the same as that on the preceding page, but I have drawn it again to impress it on your memory. It is here that the little prince appeared on Earth, and disappeared.

Look at it carefully so that you will be sure to recognise it in case you travel some day to the Gulf of Lion. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on. Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back.




 Vole vole petite aile, ma douce, mon hirondelle.
Va t'en loin, va t'en sereine qu'ici rien ne te retienne.
Rejoins le ciel et l'éther, laisse-nous laisse la terre
quitte manteau de misère: Change d'univers.
 

Céline Dion



Hélène Boucher
Hélène Boucher was the daughter of a Parisian architect; after an ordinary schooling she experienced flight at Orly and then became the first pupil at the flying school run by Henri Fabos at Mont-de-Marsan. She rapidly obtained her brevet (no. 182) aged 23, bought a de Havilland Gypsy Moth and learned to navigate and perform aerobatics. 

Her great ability was recognised by Michel Detroyat who advised her to focus on aerobatics, his own speciality. Their performances drew in crowds to flight shows, for example at Villacoublay, and her skills gained her public transport brevet in June 1932. After attending a few aviation meetings, she sold the Moth and bought an Avro Avian, planning a flight to the Far East; in the event she got as far as Damascus and returned via North Africa, limited by financial difficulties.

In 1933 she flew with Miss Jacob in the Angers 12-hour race in one of the lowest-powered machines there, a 45 kW Salmson-engined Mauboussin-Zodiac 17; completing 1,645 km at an average speed of 137 km/h and came 14th. They were the only female team competing and received the prize of 3,000 francs set aside for an all-women team as well as 3,000 francs for position. The following year, on a contract with the Caudron company and in a faster Caudron Rafale she competed again, coming second.


 
Hélène Boucher, Cirrus (left) and Caudron (right)
During 1933 and 1934 she set several world records for women, set out below; exceptionally, she held the international, male or female, record for speed over 1,000 km in 1934. 

Most of these records were flown in Renault-powered Caudron aircraft, and in June 1934 the Renault company also took her temporarily under contract in order to promote their new Viva Grand Sport.

On 30 November 1934 she died aged 26 flying a Caudron C.430 Rafale near Versailles when the machine crashed into the woods of Guyancourt. Posthumously, she was immediately made a Knight of the Légion d'Honneur and was the first woman to lie in state at Les Invalides, where her funeral obsequies were held. She is buried in Yermenonville cemetery. Parts of the press and others held Detroyat to be responsible for her death, spurring a young, innocent girl to such a dangerous sport.


More information: Air Charter Service USA

After her death several memorials of different kinds were set up. A brand new, art-deco styled, Girls High School-Lycée Hélène Boucher built in 1935 in Paris was named after her as she was considered a model for future generations of modernistic, forward thinking girls.

There is a stone in the Guyancourt woods where the crash happened, a tomb monument at Yermenonville and various squares and street names remember her. 1935 saw the first running of a competition for female pilots, the Boucher Cup.



 Past the planets and the stars, leave this lonely world of ours,
escape the sorrow and the pain and fly again.
Your endless journey has begun, take your gentle happiness
far too beautiful for this. Cross over to the other shore.

Céline Dion

Thursday, 7 April 2016

ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE

The Grandma is still in Panama. The weather is fine and she continues with her business. 


Today, she's gone to an interesting conference about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and his best seller The Little Prince.Here, she attaches some information about it:

The Little Prince, first published in 1943, is a novella, the most famous work of the French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944).

The Little Prince is a poetic tale, with watercolour illustrations by the author, in which a pilot stranded in the desert meets a young prince fallen to Earth from a tiny asteroid. The story is philosophical and includes social criticism, remarking on the strangeness of the adult world. It was written during a period when Saint-Exupéry fled to North America subsequent to the Fall of France during the Second World War, witnessed first-hand by the author and captured in his memoir Flight to Arras.

The adult fable, according to one review, is actually "...an allegory of Saint-Exupéry's own life—his search for childhood certainties and interior peace, his mysticism, his belief in human courage and brotherhood, and his deep love for his wife Consuelo but also an allusion to the tortured nature of their relationship”.


Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Loveliness extreme.
Extra gaiters,
Loveliness extreme.
Sweetest ice-cream.
Pages ages page ages page ages.
Gertrude Stein

Sunday, 15 February 2015

EVA & THE PET PROJECT 01/2015

The Pet Project 01/2015
Last Friday, we decided to go to Venice to spend the weekend and joy the Venetian Carnival. Before this, we talked about social movements and its affection in cities like Barcelona and we created tales inspired in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince.

Eva explained us the future accommodation of our pets in Downton Abbey and all The Collins Family was exciting with the proposal.

During this weekend, The Collins Family is enjoying Venetian culture and tomorrow this evening they’re flying to London where they will stay some days in a hotel meanwhile the workers refurbish Downton Abbey and finish the last works.


Who would have thought from the top of the Coliseum,
that the Roman Empire was not eternal.

Urban proverb