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an old letter written in black ink on a piece of paper
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MERMOZ Jean L.A.S. ‘Jean’, Buenos Aires, 14 November 1928, to his grandparents, the GILLETs; 2 pages, in-4 format, on Aeroposta Argentina letterhead. Regarding his planned transatlantic flight. He hopes to leave for France shortly. ‘Everything seems to be working out just as I’d hoped. I believe that Bouilloux-Lafont, the big boss, is going to fund me for the Paris–New York or Paris–Rio de Janeiro leg. He has already asked which aircraft manufacturer I would like to use and seems to be taking the matter seriously. So life is good, and with all the assets I’m going to bring to bear, and the overwhelming intuition I have that I’ll succeed, I intend to achieve something even better before long, because one must always strive to do better. Now, I’ve had to promise to return to my post as chief pilot in Buenos Aires as soon as the rally is over – something I accepted without hesitation, as success won’t go to my head, and there are so many lovely people here who mean so much to me!! So I’ll be finishing out my two years in South America anyway.” A year has already passed since he left France: “Time has flown by so quickly and there’s so much to do here! […] It’s sweltering here at the moment. It’s summer now. In Rio de Janeiro, it’s like an oven. Fortunately, there’s the sea and the beach. Here, we’re deprived of those, and the Rio de la Plata, perpetually a dirty yellow, isn’t very inviting. In any case, the air is fresh. I’ve put on 6 kg. The scales show nearly 87 kg, and yet I don’t realise I’m putting on weight. We’re still sharing our flat with my two friends. Things are going well. Although we change our domestic staff every fortnight […] In any case, I know I’ll be delighted to see Grandma’s rabbits and Grandad’s cider again’... He’s trying to bring over ‘Max Delty’s son, who did his apprenticeship in Toulouse, to the Company. He’ll earn a good living here and will be able to support his family. Our service is running smoothly at the moment. It takes about 8½–9 days, more or less consistently, from Paris to Buenos Aires and vice versa. We set off from Buenos Aires on Wednesday to arrive in Rio on Thursday at four o’clock, and the next day the mail is in Natal, where it is immediately loaded onto a aviso. We are pressing ahead with the construction of seaplanes to reduce the journey time to 6 days or 6½ days. The ships are taking up most of our time. As soon as we have achieved an irrefutable result, we shall launch a major publicity campaign. So far, many people are still unaware of the route. When one considers that in Europe we started with 50 kg of post for Morocco and that now there is as much as 500 kg daily, one can be convinced of the success it will achieve in South America. But what an effort it will have required. No one will ever suspect what has been achieved over the past year. Security is now virtually complete. The organisation is up and running and improving day by day. In the early days, we had to make up for the lack of organisation with feats of strength, and with every consignment, we can now say that we risked our lives each time to ensure it arrived as quickly as possible. […] The Germans talk of competing with us using their Zeppelins, but they are heading for accidents and bankruptcy; I am almost certain of it. And we are waiting for them!”… Correspondence, no. 155 Source: - Jean Mermoz (1901–1936); - Gabrielle Gillet-Mermoz (1880–1955); - Then passed down through the family
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About the sale Historical Memories
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Auction time 11/03/2026 at 11:00 AM
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