Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the last romantic : first extract

Antoine had an itinerant childhood. He, his mother, his brother and his sisters stayed in the houses of various relatives. After two years on his maternal grandfather's estate, the family moved to Lyon to live with a wealthy aunt and the house in Saint-Maurice became part of Antoine's life. He was seven. His mother recalled, Antoine did not seem bothered by his raggle-taggle childhood, so long as he had Saint-Maurice, a haven of security. Perhaps also because he was so close to his mother. He was her favorite, and she placed all her hopes in him. She adored her spirited, charming son and indulged his every whim. He had a prodigious vitality and above all, an overflowing imagination. He spent his time inventing engines, machine projects. He had invented a bicycle with a sail. We had asked the old governess to make a sail with a bed sheet. We had fixed this sail to the bicycle and he set off at full speed towards the end of the park in the hope that the bicycle would take off.