Antoine de SAINT EXUPÉRY requests the reorganization of his flight hours.

Antoine de SAINT-EXUPÉRY (1900.1944)

Autograph letter signed to his aviation instructor.

A ½ in-8° page taken from a notepad.

Lyon. No date [early 1920s].

“I hope you will forgive the inconvenience I am causing one of your most trusted pilots. »

Mysterious letter from the Little Prince's father requesting that his flight instruction hours be reorganized following a serious operation.

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“Sir, I apologize for disturbing you again but I have just undergone a serious operation in Lyon and will not be able to make the hour and a half flight this month that you authorized me to accumulate at your center in Bron ( i.e. ½ hour remaining of my flights to Orly in May and my hour in June).

As I will be on my feet at the beginning of July I would be infinitely grateful to you if you would inform Lyon that I will accumulate my July hour, my June hour there that month and if the accumulation can encompass three months, which is I believe the case, my half [sic] hour of May. That's two and a half hours. I hope you will forgive the inconvenience I am causing to one of your most loyal pilots and ask you to accept my distinguished feelings. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. St Joseph's Hospital. 7 avenue Parmentier. Lyon. »

At the end of the letter, his instructor gives him a dry response, declining St Exupéry's proposals:

"Mr. In response to your letter of June 25, I inform you that it is extremely regrettable that you were not able to report to the Bron center during June because the terms are grouped individually and you will therefore only be possible in July to carry out as many flights as possible in July, August and September..."

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Note : We found no trace of any operation by St Exupéry at St Joseph hospital in Lyon. Is this one of St Ex's usual arrangements with reality?