Long before we had the happiness (and unhappiness, after the 3-4 in the round of 16 of the World Cup) to admire the exquisite football of...
Long before we had the happiness (and unhappiness, after the 3-4 in the round of 16 of the World Cup) to admire the exquisite football of Pogba, Varane, Mbappé and other eight virtuosos, a no less illustrious Frenchman had an expensive meeting face -accidental and almost furtive- with a handful of Argentines who were demure by that appointment without prior notice.
View of the coast of Entre Ríos and the Uruguay river near Concordia.
On a peaceful morning in 1929, Antoine de Saint-Saint-Exupéry set foot on the coast of Entre Rios -where Concordia loomed at a slow pace- without having proposed, forced by the unbearable moan of the engine of his aeropostal machine. The aviator had had the audacity to alter the tranquility of the hills, the jungles in the gallery and the shore of the Uruguay River, the wild wasteland in which these audacious men lived, as suspicious as their unexpected guest.
A panoramic view of the Uruguay River and Salto (on the Uruguayan coast) from the ruins of the Castillo de San Carlos.
At that time, the locals were on guard. It is that already in 1888 they had believed to recognize little less than an extraterrestrial in the diminutive body of Edouard Demachy, a French count appeared untimely in his way, who raised a disproportionate castle at the highest point of the rural landscape. From the pioneer and his wife there was no more news since in 1891 they decided to cross the river on their own boat and get away forever.
Castillo de San Carlos, in Entre Ríos.
Three decades later, when the disoriented pilot arrived in the area, the disproportionate mass was in the hands of his compatriots Fuchs Valon, who was not very fond of talking to the Creoles. Exupéry himself did not manage to unravel the mysteries that the couple guarded between the stone walls of the fortress, although he was invited to go inside by his daughters Edda and Suzanne. The novelist was left speechless, alone and frustrated, when the family left the place without saying goodbye or leaving a trace.
Part of the ruins of the mansion built on a hillock of the Entre Ríos coast in the late nineteenth century.
Almost a century passed since that milestone and today it is usual to observe visitors to the San Carlos Park sharing rounds of mate and talks at the foot of the monument "The Little Prince", as a probable gesture that expresses admiration for the work of the prodigal son of Lyon. Or, perhaps, it is a veiled form -which the good losers adopt- of accepting without excuses the defeat of the Argentine National Team and, in passing, showing empathy towards the best performers of French culture.
Sculpture inspired by the novel "El Principito", in San Carlos Park, near Concordia (Entre Ríos).
Among those presumptions is a certainty, key piece of the most genuine pride of the concordienses: the enchanting landscape that covers them illuminated Exupéry so that in 1943 he created the most inspired sections of "The Little Prince". The scene of the pilot lost in a desert that meets a prince from another planet could be the best example. After a few months, Exupéry flew out of there. It remained the stately castle, which is still immersed in a deep silence.
COMMENTS