“Envoyé spécial” Press Card for L’Intransigeant
Issued in Saint-Exupéry’s name — “M. le Comte de Saint-Exupéry” — with his original identification photograph, Paris address at 5 rue de Chanaleilles, and the signature of the newspaper’s administrator. Preserved in its original brown leather wallet, gilt-stamped “L’INTRAN’.”
The printed date of validity, 1933, should be treated with caution. It predates Saint-Exupéry’s significant collaboration with L’Intransigeant, which began in late 1935 and developed during 1936. The card was most probably completed or reused on an earlier form when he began working for the newspaper.
Following the failure of his Paris–Saigon air raid and his crash in the Libyan desert, Saint-Exupéry gave L’Intransigeant the account of his ordeal. The six articles published between 30 January and 4 February 1936 under the title Vol brisé. Prison de sable would later form part of Terre des hommes (Wind, Sand and Stars). A few months later, the newspaper sent him to Spain to report on the Civil War; his dispatches from Barcelona appeared as L’Espagne ensanglantée.
In 1933, Saint-Exupéry had been working as a test pilot for Latécoère seaplanes, a career interrupted by an accident in the Bay of Saint-Raphaël shortly before Christmas. This is not an official French press card, but an internal document issued by the newspaper. It belongs to the moment when Saint-Exupéry—already celebrated as both aviator and author of Southern Mail and Night Flight—was becoming a major reporter, moving from the cockpit to the front lines of contemporary history.
A rare and evocative document linking Saint-Exupéry to one of the leading Paris newspapers of the interwar period, at the very beginning of the reporting that would lead to Wind, Sand and Stars and his celebrated writings on the Spanish Civil War.
Well-used condition, with losses and rubbing to the printed card; photograph well preserved. Original brown leather wallet with the newspaper’s name stamped in gilt.