Cycling / Tour / Faber (1887-1915) Pipe in two parts on meta - Lot 32

Cycling / Tour / Faber (1887-1915) Pipe in two parts on metal base with square base; on one side the hearth (diam: 2.3, H. 4.5, W. 6 cm) with patina, traces of use and metal ring at the junction, on the other, the long pipe in two parts, one black, one transparent inclined with the bulging terminal socket (13.5 cm). In the furnace, a typed note has been piously slipped: "This pipe belonged to François Faber, winner of the Tour 1909, François Faber killed at the battle of Carency in May 1915, and missing, this pipe was returned in his pack after his death" The widow Faber offered this relic to the great André Leducq, who then gave it to a great journalist who loved the human dimension of these pioneers. The "Giant of Colombes" used to chew on this pipe to forget the mud, the totos and the smells, while writing letters and cards. Guided by Alphonse Baugé and Alphonse Steinès, this citizen of Colombes, who honors him in his museum, was a model of talent, generosity and power, occasionally giving a lecture, or joking with his friends Bouin and Carpentier. An impressive winner of the 1909 Tour (5 stages in a row, plus one), he could also have won the 1910 Tour, despite the high mountains that were inaugurated, which favored his great rival Octave Lapize, but an ulcer slowed him down quite a bit. This pipe also recounts this epic, his monstrous breakaways, with considerable gaps, his foot races, when the chain gave way, and his victories in Paris-Tours (2 times), Paris-Roubaix, Bordeaux-Paris, or Paris-Bruxelles. This phenomenon, who took 19 stages in the Tour (and which Tours, 2000 km more than today) was still triumphant at the end of July 1914 in Longwy and Dunkirk. A month later, he was in military training in Bayonne, to "give back to France, a little of what it had given him.Present in Céline's work (Mort à crédit), with this pipe, Faber brings to mind Cocteau's beautiful phrase about Panama Al Brown, "Il en reste une fumée, qui ne se dissipera jamais" ("A smoke remains, which will never dissipate").