the project about to succeed

AFP, published on Saturday June 27, 2020 at 4:01 p.m.

The enthusiasts of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, whose 120th birthday is celebrated on Monday, will have to show some patience before they can visit his “castle” in Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens (Ain). But the reflection on the cultural project around the writer-aviator seems to be on its way.

The large house, called the “castle” by the locals, was a place of vacation, games and dreams for little Antoine, born in 1900 in Lyon. His literary work often alludes to it.

“It was, somewhere, a park loaded with black fir trees and lime trees, and an old house that I loved,” he wrote in Terre des Hommes in 1939.

The Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region bought it from the municipality in February, for 980,000 euros, with the ambition of making it “one of the biggest places in (the) region, poetic and modern”, according to its President Laurent Wauquiez.

Since then, a legal and financial study has been underway.

The region is “reflecting on the content of the cultural project and the management methods of this emblematic place”. A decision on its orientation must be taken “within fifteen days”, assured AFP Florence Verney-Carron, vice-president in charge of culture.

“It is a priority dossier”, which will be piloted “closely” with all of the actors in the territory, she added.

“It brings hope because the region has the means and the scope to be able to do something,” rejoiced with AFP Patrick Don, the Association for the protection and promotion of the house. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s childhood (ASPME), who dreams of a “place of transmission attracting visitors from all over the world”.

For the mayor Éric Gaillard, all the stake will be the revitalization of the commune by tourism, while “preserving the tranquility” of the approximately 700 inhabitants.

“It has been a project in the making for 25-30 years and there is a little impatience” among the villagers, who are slow to see the project come to fruition, he told AFP.

“The elders have an attachment to the house,” added Sylviane Bouchard, assistant to the town hall: “They had relations with the mother of Antoine, who was a very friendly person, devoted to the population”.

– Colony, then boarding school –

The castle, built in the 18th century in a 5 hectare park, became the property of Marie Boyer de Fonscolombe, the mother of Saint-Exupéry, in 1920 when she inherited it from her aunt Gabrielle de Lestrange.

It was then bought in 1932 by the school fund of the city of Lyon, which made it a colony then a boarding school in the 1950s. It remained unoccupied for a long time thereafter, before being sold in 2009 to the municipality de Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens who already had plans to develop it.

Today, in the castle closed to the public, only a few elements remain from the period, such as the dining room or the library.

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