Vol sur Arras [tapuscrit]
Manuscript corrections in black ink or pencil. Bound in one volume, red morocco, smooth spine, gilt title on the cover.
This typescript, bearing deletions and corrections in black pencil in a hand other than the author's, was given by Saint-Exupéry to one of his close New York friends, Nada de Bragance, whom he nicknamed “Plume d'Ange” (“Angel Feather”) because of her tousled hair, and whose distinctive laugh is said to have inspired the “bell” of the stars in The Little Prince.
Signed presentation inscription at the head:
“Mon petit plume d'ange, j'ai bien besoin de te revoir. Je suis las. J'ai pris une charge bien lourde sur mes épaules et il n'est ni question de pouvoir vivre en paix en m'en débarrassant, ni de pouvoir respirer en l'assumant : drôle de chose que la conscience ! Évidemment il ne s'agit pas de vivre en mari-femme. Ça, c'est pour moi impossible. Mais le reste est déjà tellement, tellement amer ! Et puis voilà que mon petit livre va sortir. Et se préparent comme d'usage toutes les calomnies et jalousies. Tu vois ça d'ici la pègre des faux Français de New York, qui déjà remue. Je sens à mille signes fermenter le marais… Ah ! Plume d'ange que je suis triste, écœuré et las ! Voilà mon ours. Je n'en pense aucun bien - crois-le. Je l'ai écrit dans le désordre intérieur. Je n'ai pas réussi à dire ce que je voulais. Je te supplie de me câbler quand tu l'auras reçu et lu. Je t'appellerai immédiatement. Mais dis m'en déjà un mot par câble !”
Intended to celebrate the heroism of French aviation during the war, this book was published in New York on February 20, 1942, in English under the title Flight to Arras, and in French under the title Pilote de guerre; it then appeared in France at Gallimard on November 27, 1942, initially passed by the German occupation censors, but banned on February 11, 1943, and thereafter circulated clandestinely by the Resistance movements.
The book had a considerable impact in the United States, whose entry into the conflict Saint-Exupéry hoped for; it was fiercely attacked in France by the collaborationist press.
The BnF holds an important composite manuscript of this work (Mss, N.a.fr. 25126), given by Helen Mac Kay, a Francophile American, author of La France que j’aime, and godmother of Nada de Bragance, to whom Saint-Exupéry precisely gave the finished typescript presented here. The BnF also holds an almost identical typescript of Pilote de guerre, given by Saint-Exupéry to the musician Nadia Boulanger: in the dedication, Saint-Exupéry states that he is giving her, at the end of 1941, “one of four typescripts” (Œuvres complètes, II, Pléiade, 2009, p. 1317). Only two were given with a dedication: that of Nadia Boulanger and that of Nada de Bragance.
These gifts are unsurprising: Nadia Boulanger and Nada de Bragance were both close friends of Saint-Exupéry.
Nada de Bragance was the wife of a Brazilian prince of the illustrious House of Braganza. She saw Saint-Exupéry regularly during his stay in New York. A woman of great beauty, she belonged to Saint-Exupéry’s closest circle of friends there, alongside Nadia Boulanger, Robert Boname, Pierre Lazareff, Jacques Maritain, his American publishers and their wives, Peggy and Curtice Hitchcock and Elizabeth and Eugene Reynal, Lewis Galantière, his translator, and Bernard Lamotte, his illustrator.
The various typescripts are closely related in format, overall composition and corrections; they contain variants from the published text, although the two versions remain very close. The corrections present here show that this is the third state of the typescript, preceding the BnF copy, which appears to be the last before publication. The other two typescripts have appeared at public auction, one in 1984 (Drouot), the other in 2012 (Artcurial). Both are less heavily corrected than the two later versions, and neither is inscribed by the author.
This typescript preserves the unexpurgated version of a “deranged war”: the text gives the wording intended by the author, including the famous sentence “Hitler a déclenché cette guerre démente” (p. 21), which was cut from the text published in France. During the Occupation, the Propaganda-Staffel forced Gallimard, who had sought authorization to publish, to remove this sentence. It is worth noting that the expurgated text still appears today in the paperback edition (Folio, p. 27), though the Pléiade editors restored it (p. 125; see also the notes, p. 1304). The typescript also contains a few paragraphs that were cut from the printed version (last paragraphs of leaves 170 and 171).
Provenance: Nada de Bragance; Drouot (sale, Paris, December 4, 1991); Christie’s (sale, Paris, November 20, 2007, lot 95).