SAINT-EXUPÉRY Antoine de (1900-1944). - Lot 125

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  3. SAINT-EXUPÉRY Antoine de (1900-1944). - Lot 125
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Lot n° 125
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SAINT-EXUPÉRY Antoine de (1900-1944). - Lot 125
SAINT-EXUPÉRY Antoine de (1900-1944). Autograph MANUSCRIT, La Guerre, [March 1939?]; 4 and a quarter pages on 5 in-4 sheets of yellow peel paper, with erasures and corrections, paginated in bis from 3 to [7], with a small pen-and-ink sketch of a face at the top. Manuscript on the inevitability of war against expansionist Germany, after Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia (15 March 1939). [Saint-Exupéry had left at the beginning of March 1939 for a car trip to Germany, which was quickly interrupted on the 15th by events. This text, perhaps conceived as a reportage, seems to be unpublished. A development on wheat is very close to a paragraph in Pilote de guerre (Pléiade, t. II, p. 207)] "Germany. The entry into Prague. [...] Where does this half-hearted atmosphere come from? On the small country roads of troops and troops and troops. [...] In this inn, the hostess, who watches the men pass by, speaks to us: it's terrible, isn't it? We are certainly going to take her sons. She has five sons. She resists the war. She does not understand war. But for a long time now, I no longer believe in intellectual language. This one resists war. Others resist the war. It would be necessary to probe far into the hearts to discover even in young people, empty and tired sages, something other than the refusal of war. Where is the acceptance of war? And yet it is possible. Here are the witnesses of the threat, all these carnivorous insects, all these oiled instruments [...] polished, shining that a people has forged for itself like a tool. And which are flowing towards the roads in the direction of Prague. The metal scales are installed in the countryside and the countryside changes its meaning. I also think of the mystery of natures, the mystery of being. All it takes is a similar instrument on the edge of a wheat field and the wheat changes its taste. The bread does not have the same taste. The song of the harvester changes of sense. All the syringes inject their venoms and transform the being into another being. And yet the peace of the countryside, the gust of wind in the harvest, has not changed. But what is a wheat field? The man is not a cattle to the fertilizer. There is the song of the wheat and the poem of the harvest. Wheat is also a spiritual element. And this is the part that is passed on. And here I am, crushed in this Germany that has covered itself with its scales. But how afraid this woman is. Simply stirred in her belly and not caring about the Empire. But in appearance. For a long time I thought I had noticed that in order to understand men well, one should not listen to what they say. [...] One believes that man speaks. One believes that he acts for explicable reasons. One believes to seize him well by the language. And indeed the exact sciences have taught us that the language of the man seized perfectly well the phenomena of the nature. And we think that it is the same of the man. So war is impossible because nothing in the language of the twentieth century sings the possibility of war. Have books appeared since eighteen on the horrors, the turpitudes, the sterility of wars. Nobody in France believes that war is impossible. And he quotes ALAIN... "there are the demands of the species that triumph over logic or don't care about it. And each one ignores them in himself these hidden tendencies because there are no words to say them. [...] Thus of morality: each individual prefers to be free because not to be free is expressed by the opposition of a desire. And however themselves, confusedly, look for masters. And invent morals for themselves. [...] In the same way of the war: each individual refuses it. However they will make the war. All of them. It can only please, this bankruptcy. And we are all ready to admit it against the strong heads that support technical progress. The German propaganda fed with arguments the opponents of an army which has stocks of weapons here is not reasonable. The courage of the good infantry armament is the described factors. From time to time a great nonconformism is revealed which breaks with traditions and cheats the game. It is against logic, but logic is an achievement of the past. [...] That is to say, always a language that links them to each other. They follow one another according to a law. The equation must be modified so that it also absorbs this point. My law is only a method of classification. [...] Geniuses are those who have broken with tradition. Tradition codifies the discoveries of genius. But when conditions have changed, this code is no longer valid. And here is before us the non-conformist Germany that occupies the roads and does tactical exercises"... Etc. Provenance : Artcurial sale, 16 May 2012 (n° 387).
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