Consuelo Saint-Exupery: the other side of a gentle genius (9 photos)

The literature of Antoine Saint-Exupery raised many romantically minded teenagers. His books are tender, full of beautiful and life-like phrases, and “The Little Prince” is quoted by everyone (in my opinion, even too much).





The pilot’s wife, who gave the world so many fabulous images, is usually remembered in a negative context. She allegedly tormented the unfortunate writer with her hysterics, mental disorders and violent temper. At least that’s how Antoine presented it all, but you should always find out the opinion of the other side in order to have a complete understanding of what is happening.

Antoine and Consuelo's life was turbulent.



Consuelo Sunsin was born into a very wealthy family. At the age of 19, a capable girl received a grant to study English (she was born in El Salvador) and so ended up in San Francisco, where she met her number one husband - an ordinary Mexican who worked in a warehouse. But pretty soon it became clear that they were in a hurry to get married and at first began to live separately, and then the man died in an accident.

Consuela was 22 years old when she left San Francisco for Mexico City. She studied to be a journalist, but also not for long - she moved to France, where she met her second husband. Journalist Enrique Gomez-Carrillo was famous in Latin America and the couple lived happily until Enrique died of a stroke a year after the wedding. Consuelo was widowed for the second time.





Antoine in his youth

Being the widow of not only a famous writer, but also a consul, the girl, having accepted Argentine citizenship, began to receive a substantial pension. Plus, she inherited his entire fortune and housing in Buenos Aires, and Consuelo gave lectures about Enrique’s work. At one of these lectures, in 1930, she met for the first time her future third husband, Antoine Saint-Exupéry. Two young people from wealthy families - why not the beginning of the next novel?

But the novel went awry from the very beginning, and if in those days there were books on psychiatry and the behavior of domestic tyrants, Consuelo would quickly understand who she was dealing with.



It is worth saying that when they were introduced to each other, Antoine did not let her leave. He pushed her into a chair and stood so that the girl could not get up, despite the fact that Consuelo said several times that she had to go. The writer simply forced her (and two more of his acquaintances) to go for a ride on the plane, and there he created a dangerous situation, tilting the plane and sharply lowering it, thus extorting a kiss from Consuela, otherwise, Saint-Exupery threatened, he would simply crash and will break everyone.

The girl, raised in the spirit of Catholicism inherent in Latin America, was simply shocked by the behavior of her new acquaintance and, despite his blackmail, refused.

The writer began a new manipulation, starting to sob (this was generally a common thing for him - Antoine was easy to cry) and claim that the girl was refusing him a kiss because of his ugliness. This was already reminiscent of the poor attempts of pick-up artists to get sex out of pity, but Consuelo could not remain indifferent and Antoine got what he wanted. I wonder if he was sick of himself? As their subsequent lives show, apparently not.



It is not surprising that Consuelo, finding herself under such powerful pressure, quickly agreed to marry the future author of The Little Prince. The delighted Antoine assured the girl that he would buy her the largest diamond he could find in Buenos Aires, but these words (like many others) remained just loud words. Moreover, the wedding date hasn’t been set yet, it seems like they live together and that’s okay. On the one hand, this was beneficial for Consuelo, because being unmarried, she remained the sole owner of her second husband’s inheritance, but on the other hand, living with a man as a concubine was a terrible shame in those days, even if the woman was a widow.

Saint-Exupery bathes his beloved in streams of admiration, and then says that he needs to work on a book. But something doesn’t work for him and the girl literally has to lead him by the hand to the table, lays out a piece of paper in front of him, asks him to start writing, and, as it were, becomes responsible for his work.



Further more. Finally, Antoine decided to bring himself to the register, Consuelo had already given her name, place of residence, and then he began to shed tears non-stop. Well, he can’t get married when his family isn’t around. Touching? Well maybe.

The act could be compared to a slap in the face given to a Catholic woman in public. Not only did she live with him before the wedding, but he also literally refuses to marry her at the very last moment. Consuelo feels incredibly humiliated, and the tears of her failed husband also make her feel guilty. She was from those places where men's tears were shed only for very serious reasons.

In parallel with all these ups and downs, there were constant accidents on planes, which Antoine adored so much. He was a rather large and heavy man and was not particularly suited to pilot those tiny planes almost made of plywood, as he could barely squeeze his heavy body into it. Constant accidents did not stop him. Absent-minded, he either forgot to close the door, or retract the landing gear, or land on the wrong track. But he was not refused, despite the breakdown of expensive celestial transport. His favorite pastime in the sky was flying, and on the ground - Consuelo.



The couple travels to France, where they finally get married. Most likely, that outburst at City Hall was just another way of asserting herself over a woman and another step in her self-esteem: she could have left at that moment, but she didn’t, which means she can continue further.

In fact, he didn’t really need a wife, be it Consuelo or someone else - he continued to live the same way as before the marriage was registered. Constant parties, partying, fleeting romances with different women, posing and showing off of a young and already famous writer. The girl did not remain in debt, and when her husband’s next betrayal came to light, she, no longer able to bear it, promised to stab Antoine to death. Consuelo tried to somehow get through to Antoine, and when words stopped working, she worked according to his method: she could go to a bar at night, threaten suicide (she was not going to do this). She could sit and publicly throw plates at his head, or climb onto the table at a party and melancholy drink wine from a glass. The gossip column had something to profit from. Antoine, being practically indifferent to his wife, ostentatiously expressed concern about Consuelo’s condition.

Tired of all this, the woman also decided to get carried away with other men, but she did not need affairs, but someone to whom she could escape. Antoine diligently suppressed any attempts at romance by his wife and Consuelo found herself in a trap: all her assets already belonged to her husband, without a reliable shoulder she simply had nowhere to go. Women who idolized Saint-Exupery envied her with terrible envy. Well, except for those with whom her husband slept.



And, one day, Antoine simply disappeared for a year. Then he showed up and, as if nothing had happened, ordered Consuelo to come to New York. And he didn’t even meet him, entrusting this to his friend and providing his wife with the strictest instructions, which boiled down to one thing - not to talk to anyone, including the ubiquitous journalists. In fact, this is the only thing that worried him about Consuela’s arrival... So that she would be “deaf and dumb” and not talk anything to the media. When they meet in a taxi, he gives her a real interrogation: did she talk to anyone on the way and, if so, what did she say? And after the interrogation, he falls silent, as if they had met yesterday, and not a year ago, and at that time the Second World War was not going on.

That same evening, Antoine and Consuelo go to a fun party, where the woman sees food, bread, treats, whereas in France she had to eat dry bread crusts. At that time, her husband lived calmly and satisfactorily, denying himself nothing. At the hotel they live in different rooms so that the wife does not interfere with her husband having fun, having affairs and in general...



At the same time, Consuelo finds a job and now, it would seem, is the moment when he can leave, having gained at least some kind of financial independence. For now, she asked her husband to just find her an apartment so as not to live in the same hotel with him. He surprisingly easily agreed, but still left the leash short: he says that he will come to dinner together, but he doesn’t come and Consuelo finds Antoine in a cafe, in a joyfully laughing company. During the day he is absolutely indifferent and contemptuous, but at night he showers his wife with tender words, swears that she is his only one, his beloved, and Consuelo believes that now their relationship will become wonderful and not only in words. But Antoine’s betrayal follows another betrayal, and this cycle did not even think of stopping until the death of the “father” of the Little Prince. Airplane AntuAna crashed, the pilot goes missing and only Saint-Exupery's bracelet is found among the wreckage. Who knows where he went, but Consuelo was widowed for the third time.

She never became the one rose sung by her husband, no matter how hard she tried.

Everyone can draw their own conclusions.