Consuelo de Saint Exupéry
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Madame Consuelo de Saint Exupéry |
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Consuelo de Saint Exupéry in 1942
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
Consuelo Suncín de Sandova 10 April 1901 Armenia, El Salvador |
| Died | 18 May 1979 (aged 78) Grasse, France |
| Resting place | Père Lachaise Cemetery |
| Spouse(s) | Ricardo Cardenas (divorced) Enrique Gómez Carrillo (widowed) Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (m.1931-1944; his death) |
| Occupation | writer, artist |
Consuelo de Saint Exupéry, officially Consuelo Suncín, comtesse de Saint Exupéry (10 April 1901 in Armenia, El Salvador – 18 May 1979 in Grasse, France) was a Salvadoran-French writer and artist, and the wife of the French aristocrat, writer and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944).
Born Consuelo Suncín de Sandoval as the daughter of a rich coffee grower and army reservist, she grew up in a family of wealthy landowners in a small town in the Salvadoran department of Sonsonate. Due to her asthma, her father sent her abroad to the United States, where she studied in San Francisco; later she studied in Mexico City, and also in France. Her first marriage was to a Mexican army captain, Ricardo Cardenas, whom she met in the United States. Though this marriage ended in divorce, she lied and said it ended with his death during the Mexican Revolution, since divorced women were then stigmatized by society, and being a widow was preferable to being a divorced woman. While in France, she met and later married Enrique Gómez Carrillo, a Guatemalan writer, diplomat and journalist. Following his death in 1927, she took up residence in Buenos Aires.
In 1931, she met and married the French aristocrat, writer and pioneering aviator Count Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, making her a countess. At the time Consuelo was a twice-widowed Salvadoran writer and artist who possessed a bohemian spirit and was known as a mischief-maker. Saint-Exupéry, thoroughly enchanted by the diminutive woman, would leave and then return to her many times; she was both his muse and over the long term the source of much of his angst. It was a stormy union, with Saint-Exupéry travelling frequently and indulging in numerous extramarital affairs, most notably with the Frenchwoman Hélène de Vogüé (1908–2003), known as 'Nelly' and referred to as "Madame de B." in Saint-Exupéry biographies. Consuelo also had numerous extramarital affairs.
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