Not very far from Chateau Lalinde is another beautiful chateau rich in history and character, where I often suggest my visitors go for some excellent wine tasting. But it is not only for the wine tasting that I send them there. It is really because this chateau was the home of the man who created The Little Prince. And is there possibly anyone that is not enchanted by the little prince?And the good news is that The Little Prince is soon going to appear on our television screens and in our cinemas in what promises to be an excellent production.
The Little Prince is already nothing short of a publishing phenomenon; The book has been translated into over 236 languages, and over 130 million copies have been sold worldwide, and its eponymous hero is a popular icon. Now 2010 sees the Little Prince arriving on screens big and small. The series is produced by Method Animation (Le Petit Nicolas, Skyland, Iron Man…), in partnership with France 3, German state-owned channel WDR, Italy’s RAI channel, Gallimard and Sony Video for the DVD edition.
It reunites us with the Little Prince who, at the end of the book, had returned to his rose. Accompanied by the fox, the Little Prince sets off on another voyage from planet to planet, with plenty of new encounters along the way.
A total of 40 countries have already bought the series, consisting of 26 episodes each lasting 52 minutes. Aimed at children between 6 and 10 years of age, the first episode will be aired on France 3 in time for Christmas 2010.
The animated feature film of the Little Prince will be produced by Aton Soumache, with a budget of some €45 million. The film will be a faithful adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s book, voiced by a constellation of movie stars whose names will be announced at the next Cannes Film Festival. In common with recent box office hits like Avatar, this adaptation of the Little Prince will be screened entirely in 3D. The worldwide release is scheduled for the end of 2013.
Château de Tiregand played a key part during the Hundred Years War and France’s bitter Wars of Religion (1562-1598). It was here, in 1575, that two Huguenot (Protestant) captains, Jaure and La Palanque, shared out rich booty seized from Périgueux’s Roman Catholics - including a silver reliquary containing relics of Saint Front, the first Bishop of Périgueux. In the 17th century, the château belonged to Jean de Belrieu, royal bailiff of the town of Bergerac, and, in 1668, a century later, it came through marriage into the hands of the d’Augeards, a family of parliamentarians. Count César-Alexandre de La Panouse bought the property in 1826 and carried out improvements. His son gave the house its present appearance around 1850. Carefully maintained by his descendants, the listed château now belongs to the heirs of the Countess François de Saint-Exupéry.
Today, the Château de Tiregand is an estate of 460 hectares (1,150 acres), including land, vines, woods and a riding club. This beautiful Pécharmant vineyard is currently managed by François-Xavier de Saint-Exupéry.
It is said to have been founded in the 13th century by a natural son of England’s King Edward III named Edward Tyrgan. The Château de Tiregand, listed in the official supplement of France’s Historic Buildings, now belongs to the heirs of the Countess François de St Exupéry.
The world-famed author of The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900—31 July 1944)was born at Lyon in 1900 and lost at sea on a wartime reconnaissance flight between Grenoble and Corsica in 1944. By then, he had logged nearly 7,000 hours as a pilot. His experience in pioneering the airmail service Aéropostale, as well as his accident in the desert one December night in 1935, contributed directly to his literary output: from Southern Mail to Night Flight, from Wind, Sand and Stars to Flight to Arras, as well as The Wisdom of the Sands and the unforgettable The Little Prince.He became one of the pioneers of international postal flight, in the days when aircraft had few instruments. On 30 December 1935 at 14:45 after a flight of 19 hours and 38 minutes Saint-Exupéry, along with his navigator, André Prévot, crashed in the Libyan Sahara desert en route to Saigon. Their plane was a Caudron C-630 Simoun n°7042 (Registration F-ANRY). The crash site may be the Wadi Natrun. The team was attempting to fly from Paris to Saigon faster than any previous aviators, for a prize of 150,000 francs. Both survived the landing, but were faced with the prospect of rapid dehydration in the Sahara. They had no idea of their location. According to his memoir, Wind, Sand and Stars, their sole supplies were grapes, two oranges, and a small ration of wine.
What Saint-Exupéry himself told the press shortly after rescue was that the men only had a thermos of sweet coffee, chocolate, and a handful of crackers, enough to sustain them for one day. They experienced visual and auditory hallucinations; by the third day, they were so dehydrated they ceased to sweat. Finally, on the fourth day, a Bedouin on a camel discovered them, saving their lives. Saint-Exupéry's fable The Little Prince, which begins with a pilot being marooned in the desert, is in part a reference to this experience.
Saint-Exupéry's final assignment was to collect intelligence on German troop movements in and around the Rhone Valley preceding the Allied invasion of southern France. On the evening of 31 July 1944, he left from an airbase on Corsica, and did not return. A woman reported having watched a plane crash around noon of August the first near the Bay of Carqueiranne off Toulon. An unidentifiable body wearing French colors was found several days later east of the Islands of Frioul south of Marseille and buried in Carqueiranne that September.
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