FR EN
a piece of old paper with handwriting on it
Premium Artcurial

Estimate €1,000 - €1,500
Sale commission
Description
MERMOZ Jean 2 letters ‘Jean’, Buenos Aires, 16 and 31 October 1929, to his ‘Beloved Mum’; 1 and 3 pages, in-4 format, on Via Aéropostal paper. Expansion of the Aéropostale; test flights of the aeroplane for the raid; his love for Gilberte. 16 October. ‘Just imagine, I was due to leave today, Friday, by aeroplane for France. A telegram from Paris urgently called for my presence to test a new aircraft intended for the flight from Dakar to Natal. The Managing Director replied that I could not leave the Americas at this time. In fact, the new Latécoère aeroplane that I intend to use for my flight has arrived here. I am continuing to test it and have been tasked with launching it and promoting it in all the major cities of South America. My departure is therefore temporarily delayed. […] I returned this evening from Chile and am leaving tomorrow to present the new aircraft we have just received to the Paraguayan government in Asunción. It is the same one I intend to use for my flight”… 31 October. His arrival should not be long in coming. ‘The Director-General has just left for France. He is to arrange and organise two or three flight projects with Latécoère as soon as he arrives. He will telegraph me immediately to come. In the meantime, I am flying the aeroplane with which I intend to carry out my projects throughout South America. I went to Chile eight days ago; I’ve just returned from Paraguay; tomorrow I’m inaugurating the route to Tierra del Fuego, again in my aeroplane; on my return, I’ll set off again for Chile, where I’ll pick up two company directors who’ve arrived from Paris, and then head for Peru, Colombia and Brazil. My suitcase is always packed at home; in short, I don’t think there’s a man in the world more nomadic than I am!! […] If I were sure my expedition wouldn’t take place before March, I’d have you come here straight away… but I’m always afraid that a telegram might send me off just as you’re on your way to Buenos Aires, and then that would be ridiculous. Naturally, once you’re here, you’ll be just as welcome here as you would be in France […] Besides, you know, in Buenos Aires, Mermoz’s mum would immediately be among friends, and Gilberte’s family would be delighted to meet you. We often talk about you, and you’ll see that your future daughter-in-law will be nothing more and nothing less than your own daughter, because she is very gentle and possesses a sincerity and a freshness of feeling that are rare amongst young women these days’… Gilberte is in France, and he fears that her way of life may be difficult to reconcile with family life: ‘I no longer set off with enthusiasm, but once I’m gone, it comes back—if only you knew!!—with such force; and all I know now is the effort, the bitter and harsh satisfaction it gives to those in the know, and then the moral ecstasy of the struggle amidst the beauty of things that those below do not know, the intense emotional shock of all those renewals of strange sensations that make one feel no longer human… and so far away… so far away… from the narrowness of the earthly masses… and this sometimes terrifies me because I love with all my soul and the one I love deserves a rare and absolute love; I could not bear to see her suffer by sacrificing part of her existence to my secret passion’… Etc. Source: - Jean Mermoz (1901–1936); - Gabrielle Gillet-Mermoz (1880–1955); - Then passed down through the family
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
About the sale Historical Memories
Auction location
Auction time 11/03/2026 at 11:00 AM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
You may also like