MERMOZ JEAN (1901-1936) - Lot 433

Lot n° 433
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800 - 1000 EUR
MERMOZ JEAN (1901-1936) - Lot 433
MERMOZ JEAN (1901-1936) Beautiful autograph letter from Jean Mermoz, Mazamet 31 March [1935, to HIS GRAND PARENTS]; 1 3/4 pages in-4 (bottom of 2nd page has been cut, probably to remove too intimate a passage). Tapuscript attached. Very moving letter on the death of his brother-in-law Édouard Chazottes in an airplane accident. "You must have heard the sad news in the paper: the fatal accident that happened to my little brother-in-law Édouard at Istres. As he was descending to land without having the time to realize what was happening to him, another plane crashed into his fuselage, cutting him in two, and both planes crashed! Edward had made no mistake, the other paid with his life for a mistake that was heavy with fatality... To tell you Gilberte's grief: it is useless .... She is very deeply affected; mine is deep. In the three months that Edouard had been at Istres, he had changed a lot! Aviation had made a man of him. I advised him, guided him: he replaced the family brother I didn't have... he was also my little spiritual brother in aviation... I thought, as I watched him transform little by little, that he would carry on with me in the future. He had all the qualities for that: prudence, will, courage. He was born... but he was about to live the life I live. I would not have wanted him to precede me in such a disastrous path. That he should follow me later, much later, would have been in order... He no longer suffers: he is happy. [...] He was about to turn twenty. He died in the middle of a dream. He was on his last school flights. I had sent him to Algiers where he was happy to go: he had just been posted, he had been appointed master corporal. [...] God governs our destinies! We have to know how to resign ourselves without bowing our heads and to continue always further, towards the future"...
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