Valentine de Saint-Point - Move To The Mediterranean

Move To The Mediterranean

In 1918, she returned to France after a stay in Morocco, where she had converted to Islam. Back in Paris, the world she knew was gone, including her ties with old friends. Canudo had been wounded in the forehead and their relationship turned into friendship. Between 1919 and 1924, she made several trips to Corsica, where between her reading, including Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, and meditating, Saint-Point attempted to create a College of Elites who would work towards the formation of a 'Mediterranean spirit,' or a merger the west and east. The project failed. Saint-Point's mother died in Macon in 1920, severing her last link with Burgundy. Then in 1923, Canudo died. In 1924 she published her last novel, The Secret. She was almost fifty years old at this time and nothing remained to connect her to France.

At the end of 1924, accompanied by Vivian Postel du Mas and Jeanne Canudo, the widow of her former lover, Saint-Point moved to Cairo where her fame had preceded her. She joined a group of young writers and essayists, who organized debates, conferences and theatrical events. She wrote for various newspapers such as Liberty, and lectured. Along with Jeanne Canudo, she created a "center idéiste" which combines elements of her "College of Elites". End of 1925, she launched the publication of the Phoenix, a review the East's rebirth which cast a critical eye on Western policies in the Near and Middle East. She took up the causes of the Muslim world and Arab nationalism, challenging European imperialism and the cultural hegemony of the West.

In 1927 she wrote the preface of a book on Saad Zaghloul, and in 1928, The Truth About Syria by a witness was published in France. Saint-Point's political writings generated fierce feuds within the Francophone community. She was accused of working against the interests of France and of being a spy in the pay of the Bolsheviks. Meanwhile, conferences organized by the "center idéiste" were ended several times by violent disputes, which exasperated the Egyptian authorities and prompted them to expel Canudo Jeanne and Vivian Postel du Mas. While she was in Jerusalem in 1928, after spending two months in Lebanon to treat her health which had been shattered by the attacks to which she had been subjected, she was informed that she would be banned from returning to Egypt. She appealed to Philippe Berthelot, secretary general of the Quai d'Orsay. Eventually, the Ambassador in Cairo persuaded the authorities to allow her to remain in Egypt, but in return she would have to cease all political activities. In 1930 she became friends with Rene Guenon who just moved to Cairo.

The end of her life was spent in the study of religion and meditation, while living in destitution, giving occasional consultations on dowsing and acupuncture. She died March 28, 1953 and is buried in the cemetery of El-Imam Leissi in Muslim tradition and as the Rawhiya Nour el-Deen ("zealot of divine light").