Saint-Exupéry and The Little Prince of Lyon

A statue paying tribute to Lyon's favourite son, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is hidden in plain sight.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Lyon, France's second city, has had its share of famous citizens, from Roman Emperor Claudius to chef Paul Bocuse. But when an airport is named after you, well, you've reached a whole new level.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyon in 1900, into a titled and wealthy noble family. The family's fortunes took a sharp turn when Antoine's father died in 1904.

As a young man, Antoine also suffered the loss of his brother, with whom he was very close. Devastated by his brother's death, Saint-Exupéry struggled in school, failing his final exams, and eventually working a series of jobs until he was drafted into the army.

Distributed by Agence France-Presse, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Antoine found his calling when he took flying lessons and joined the French Air Force. He then began flying mail routes from France to Africa and then to South America. Saint-Exupéry wrote about flying in the novels Courrier Sud (1929) and Vol de Nuit (1931).

The Little Prince

In 1935, Antoine and his navigator André Prévot crashed in the Libyan desert while attempting to break a speed record by flying from Paris to Saigon. With limited provisions, including only enough water for one day, and facing the intense desert heat, the men nearly died. They were discovered four days later by a Bedouin who rehydrated them and saved their lives.

This experience would be reimagined as part of his magnum opus “The Little Prince.”

Saint-Exupéry flew with the French Air Force against the Nazis until the Germans took control of France. At that point, he fled to the United States, where in 1942 he wrote "The Little Prince."

The book was published in English and French in the United States, but was not published in France until after the war because his work was banned by the Vichy puppet government.

Saint-Exupéry returned to Europe to fly with the Free French Air Force in 1943. On July 31, 1944, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry took off from Corsica for a reconnaissance flight of the Rhone Valley. His plane never returned and although there has been speculation about the crash site, debris, and personal effects, his body has never been found.

Grentidez, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Although the book initially received mixed reviews, with some praising it, others being perplexed or irritated by it, and although sales were decent but not exceptional, “The Little Prince” is now considered a classic. Although it is considered a children’s book, “The Little Prince” is actually quite sophisticated and poetic, taking a dark look at human relationships and the absurd society created by adults. If you have a copy at home, I suggest you take it out and read it again. A movie based on the book was released in 2015 and it is also magical.

The Statue at Place Bellecour

In 2000, for the 100th anniversary of Saint-Exupéry's birth, the city of Lyon unveiled a statue of Antoine and his Little Prince. Facing the southwest corner of Place Bellecour (across from the house where Saint-Exupéry was born), the statue is perched on a fifteen-foot column. I like to think that it represents Antoine and the Little Prince on one of the planets described in the book, observing Earth.

The statue itself seems almost hidden. Even though Place Bellecour is one of the most famous and busy parts of Lyon, I never saw a single person look at the statue or take a picture. Perhaps this is because the statue is across from a bus stop and under a canopy of trees, so its location is not obvious. In fact, the first time we looked for the statue, we asked someone working at the tourist office on Place Bellecour where the “Little Prince” statue was. Even though it was only a hundred meters from the office, we were sent in the wrong direction. For a statue of a man who crashed in the desert and was lost for four days, it seemed somehow appropriate.

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Map of the must-sees

Rosa Mir Garden

The Court of the Voracious

Bellevue Square

The Gardens of the Grande-Côte

Place des Jacobins

Chapel of the Trinity

Saint-Georges district

The Basilica of Ainay

Saint-Nizier Church

International City

Amphitheater of the Three Gauls

Saint Bonaventure Church

Statue of Saint Exupéry

Saint-Antoine Food Market

St. John's Cathedral

Hotel-Dieu of Lyon

The traboules of Old Lyon

Printing Museum

The Museum of Confluences

St. Peter's Palace

The Bartholdi Fountain

The Fresco of the Lyonnais

The painted walls

Merciere Street

Lyon Opera

Light Institute

The Confluence

Old Lyon

Golden Head Park

Place des Terreaux

Bellecour Square

The Gadagne Museum

The Canuts' house

Ancient Theatre of Fourvière

Banks of the Rhone

Museum of Fine Arts

The Paul Bocuse Halls

Our Lady of Fourviere

The Banks of the Saône

Climbs of the Croix-Rousse

Brotteaux district

Lyon Aquarium

Barbe Island

CHRD - resistance museum

Brochier Silk Museum

Guignol Theatre of the Park

Little Guignol Museum

The House of Guignol

Mini World Lyon

The Cinema Museum

Fourvière Museum

Subsistences

Other places

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Pierre Bossan

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