CANTO I

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GEORGES GUYNEMER

_Published on the Fund

given to the Yale University Press in memory of_

ENSIGN CURTIS SEAMAN READ, U.S.N.R.F.

_of the Class of 1918, Yale College, killed in the

aviation service in France, February, 1918_

[Illustration: GEORGES GUYNEMER, KNIGHT OF THE AIR]

HENRY BORDEAUX

GEORGES

GUYNEMER

KNIGHT OF THE AIR

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH

By LOUISE MORGAN SILL

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

NEW HAVEN

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

NEW YORK: 280 MADISON AVENUE

MDCCCCXVIII

COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Introduction 9

Prologue 13

CANTO I: CHILDHOOD

I. The Guynemers 21

II. Home and College 28

III. The Departure 52

CANTO II: LAUNCHED INTO SPACE

I. The First Victory 65

II. From the Aisne to Verdun 91

III. "La Terre a vu jadis errer des Paladins" 108

IV. On the Somme (June, 1916, to February, 1917) 125

CANTO III: AT THE ZENITH

I. On the 25th of May, 1917 143

II. A Visit to Guynemer 157

III. Guynemer in Camp 163

IV. Guynemer at Home 170

V. The Magic Machine 182

CANTO IV: THE ASCENSION

I. The Battle of Flanders 189

II. Omens 200

III. The Last Flight 210

IV. The Vigil 217

V. The Legend 225

VI. In the Panthéon 239

Envoi 242

Appendix: Genealogy of Georges Guynemer 251

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Georges Guynemer, Knight of the Air _Frontispiece_

(From a wood block in three colors by Rudolph Ruzicka.)

The First Flight in a Blériot 80

In the Air 120

Combat 176

"Going West" 208

(From charcoal drawings by W.A. Dwiggins.)

INTRODUCTION

_June 27th, 1918._

My dear M. Bordeaux:

I count the American people fortunate in reading any book of yours; I

count them fortunate in reading any biography of that great hero of the

air, Guynemer; and thrice over I count them fortunate to have such a

book written by you on such a subject.

You, sir, have for many years been writing books peculiarly fitted to

instill into your countrymen the qualities which during the last

forty-eight months have made France the wonder of the world. You have

written with such power and charm, with such mastery of manner and of

matter, that the lessons you taught have been learned unconsciously by

your readers--and this is the only way in which most readers will learn

lessons at all. The value of your teachings would be as great for my

countrymen as for yours. You have held up as an ideal for men and for

women, that high courage which shirks no danger, when the danger is the

inevitable accompaniment of duty. You have preached the essential

virtues, the duty to be both brave and tender, the duty of courage for

the man and courage for the woman. You have inculcated stern horror of

the baseness which finds expression in refusal to perform those

essential duties without which not merely the usefulness, but the very

existence, of any nation will come to an end.

Under such conditions it is eminently appropriate that you should write

the biography of that soldier-son of France whose splendid daring has

made him stand as arch typical of the soul of the French people through

these terrible four years. In this great war France has suffered more

and has achieved more than any other power. To her more than to any

other power, the final victory will be due. Civilization has in the

past, for immemorial centuries, owed an incalculable debt to France; but

for no single feat or achievement of the past does civilization owe as

much to France as for what her sons and daughters have done in the world

war now being waged by the free peoples against the powers of the Pit.

Modern war makes terrible demands upon those who fight. To an infinitely

greater degree than ever before the outcome depends upon long

preparation in advance, and upon the skillful and unified use of the

nation's entire social and industrial no less than military power. The

work of the general staff is infinitely more important than any work of

the kind in times past. The actual machinery of both is so vast,

delicate, and complicated that years are needed to complete it. At all

points we see the immense need of thorough organization and of making

ready far in advance of the day of trial. But this does not mean that

there is any less need than before of those qualities of endurance and

hardihood, of daring and resolution, which in their sum make up the

stern and enduring valor which ever has been and ever will be the mark

of mighty victorious armies.

The air service in particular is one of such peril that membership in it

is of itself a high distinction. Physical address, high training, entire

fearlessness, iron nerve, and fertile resourcefulness are needed in a

combination and to a degree hitherto unparalleled in war. The ordinary

air fighter is an extraordinary man; and the extraordinary air fighter

stands as one in a million among his fellows. Guynemer was one of these.

More than this. He was the foremost among all the extraordinary fighters

of all the nations who in this war have made the skies their battle

field. We are fortunate indeed in having you write his biography.

Very faithfully yours,

(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt.

M. Henry Bordeaux,

44 Rue du Ranelagh,

Paris, France.

PROLOGUE

" ... Guynemer has not come back."

The news flew from one air escadrille to another, from the aviation

camps to the troops, from the advance to the rear zones of the army; and

a shock of pain passed from soul to soul in that vast army, and

throughout all France, as if, among so many soldiers menaced with death,

this one alone should have been immortal.

History gives us examples of such universal grief, but only at the death

of great leaders whose authority and importance intensified the general

mourning for their loss. Thus, Troy without Hector was defenseless. When

Gaston de Foix, Duke de Nemours, surnamed the Thunderbolt of Italy, died

at the age of twenty-three after the victory of Ravenna, the French

transalpine conquests were endangered. The bullet which struck Turenne

at Saltzbach also menaced the work of Louis XIV. But Guynemer had

nothing but his airplane, a speck in the immense spaces filled by the

war. This young captain, though without an equal in the sky, conducted

no battle on land. Why, then, did he alone have the power, like a great

military chief, of leaving universal sadness behind him? A little child

of France has given us the reason.

Among the endless expressions of the nation's mourning, this letter was

written by the school-mistress of a village in Franche-Comté,

Mademoiselle S----, of Bouclans, to the mother of the aviator:

Madame, you have already received the sorrowful and grateful

sympathy of official France and of France as a nation; I am

venturing to send you the naïve and sincere homage of young France

as represented by our school children at Bouclans. Before receiving

from our chiefs the suggestion, of which we learn to-day, we had

already, on the 22nd of October, consecrated a day to the memory of

our hero Guynemer, your glorious son.

I send you enclosed an exercise by one of my pupils chosen at

random, for all of them are animated by the same sentiments. You

will see how the immortal glory of your son shines even in humble

villages, and that the admiration and gratitude which the children,

so far away in the country, feel for our greatest aviator, will be

piously and faithfully preserved in his memory.

May this sincere testimony to the sentiments of childhood be of

some comfort in your grief, to which I offer my most profound

respect.

The School-mistress of Bouclans,

C.S.

And this is the exercise, written by Paul Bailly, aged eleven years and

ten months:

Guynemer is the Roland of our epoch: like Roland he was very brave,

and like Roland he died for France. But his exploits are not a

legend like those of Roland, and in telling them just as they

happened we find them more beautiful than any we could imagine. To

do honor to him they are going to write his name in the Panthéon

among the other great names. His airplane has been placed in the

Invalides. In our school we consecrated a day to him. This morning

as soon as we reached the school we put his photograph up on the

wall; for our moral lesson we learned by heart his last mention in

the despatches; for our writing lesson we wrote his name, and he

was the subject for our theme; and finally, we had to draw an

airplane. We did not begin to think of him only after he was dead;

before he died, in our school, every time he brought down an

airplane we were proud and happy. But when we heard that he was

dead, we were as sad as if one of our own family had died.

Roland was the example for all the knights in history. Guynemer

should be the example for Frenchmen now, and each one will try to

imitate him and will remember him as we have remembered Roland. I,

especially, I shall never forget him, for I shall remember that he

died for France, like my dear Papa.

This little French boy's description of Guynemer is true and, limited as

it is, sufficient: Guynemer is the modern Roland, with the same

redoubtable youth and fiery soul. He is the last of the knights-errant,

the first of the new knights of the air. His short life needs only

accurate telling to appear like a legend. The void he left is so great

because every household had adopted him. Each one shared in his

victories, and all have written his name among their own dead.

Guynemer's glory, to have so ravished the minds of children, must have

been both simple and perfect, and as his biographer I cannot dream of

equaling the young Paul Bailly. But I shall not take his hero from him.

Guynemer's life falls naturally into the legendary rhythm, and the

simple and exact truth resembles a fairy tale.

The writers of antiquity have mourned in touching accents the loss of

young men cut down in the flower of their youth. "The city," sighs

Pericles, "has lost its light, the year has lost its spring." Theocritus

and Ovid in turn lament the short life of Adonis, whose blood was

changed into flowers. And in Virgil the father of the gods, whom Pallas

supplicates before facing Turnus, warns him not to confound the beauty

of life with its length:

Stat sua cuique dies; breve et irreparabile tempus

Omnibus est vitae; sed famam extendere factis,

Hoc virtutis opus. . .

"The days of man are numbered, and his life-time short and

irrecoverable; but to increase his renown by the quality of his acts,

this is the work of virtue...."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Æneid_, Book 10, Garnier ed.]

_Famam extendere factis_: no fabulous personage of antiquity made more

haste than Guynemer to multiply the exploits that increased his glory.

But the enumeration of these would not furnish a key to his life, nor

explain either that secret power he possessed or the fascination he

exerted. "It is not always the most brilliant actions which best expose

the virtues or vices of men. Some trifle, some insignificant word or

jest, often displays the character better than bloody combats, pitched

battles, or the taking of cities. Also, as portrait painters try to

reproduce the features and expression of their subjects, as the most

obvious presentment of their characters, and without troubling about the

other parts of the body, so we may be allowed to concentrate our study

upon the distinctive signs of the soul...."[2]

[Footnote 2: Plutarch, _Life of Alexander_.]

I, then, shall especially seek out these "distinctive signs of the

soul."

Guynemer's family has confided to me his letters, his notebooks of

flights, and many precious stories of his childhood, his youth, and his

victories. I have seen him in camps, like the Cid Campeador, who made

"the swarm of singing victories fly, with wings outspread, above his

tents." I have had the good fortune to see him bring down an enemy

airplane, which fell in flames on the bank of the river Vesle. I have

met him in his father's house at Compiègne, which was his Bivar. Almost

immediately after his disappearance I passed two night-watches--as if we

sat beside his body--with his comrades, talking of nothing but him:

troubled night-watches in which we had to change our shelter, for

Dunkirk and the aviation field were bombarded by moonlight. In this way

I was enabled to gather much scattered evidence, which will help,

perhaps, to make clear his career. But I fear--and offer my excuses for

this--to disappoint professional members of the aviation corps, who will

find neither technical details nor the competence of the specialist.

One of his comrades of the air,--and I hope it may be one of his rivals

in glory,--should give us an account of Guynemer in action. The

biography which I have attempted to write seeks the soul for its object

rather than the motor: and the soul, too, has its wings.

France consented to love herself in Guynemer, something which she is not

always willing to do. It happens sometimes that she turns away from her

own efforts and sacrifices to admire and celebrate those of others, and

that she displays her own defects and wounds in a way which exaggerates

them. She sometimes appears to be divided against herself; but this man,

young as he was, had reconciled her to herself. She smiled at his youth

and his prodigious deeds of valor. He made peace within her; and she

knew this, when she had lost him, by the outbreak of her grief. As on

the first day of the war, France found herself once more united; and

this love sprang from her recognition in Guynemer of her own impulses,

her own generous ardor, her own blood whose course has not been retarded

by many long centuries.

Since the outbreak of war there are few homes in France which have not

been in mourning. But these fathers and mothers, these wives and

children, when they read this book, will not say: "What is Guynemer to

us? Nobody speaks of _our_ dead." Their dead were, generally, infantry

soldiers whom it was impossible for them to help, whose life they only

knew by hearsay, and whose place of burial they sometimes do not know.

So many obscure soldiers have never been commemorated, who gave, like

Guynemer, their hearts and their lives, who lived through the worst days

of misery, of mud and horror, and upon whom not the least ray of glory

has ever descended! The infantry soldier is the pariah of the war, and

has a right to be sensitive. The heaviest weight of suffering caused by

war has fallen upon him. Nevertheless, he had adopted Guynemer, and this

was not the least of the conqueror's conquests. The infantryman had not

been jealous of Guynemer; he had felt his fascination, and instinctively

he divined a fraternal Guynemer. When the French official dispatches

reported the marvelous feats of the aviation corps, the infantry soldier

smiled scornfully in his mole's-hole:

"Them again! Everlastingly them! And what about US?"

But when Guynemer added another exploit to his account, the trenches

exulted, and counted over again all his feats.

He himself, from his height, looked down in the most friendly way upon

these troglodytes who followed him with their eyes. One day when

somebody reproached him with running useless risks in aërial acrobatic

turns, he replied simply:

"After certain victories it is quite impossible not to pirouette a bit,

one is so happy!"

This is the spirit of youth. "They jest and play with death as they

played in school only yesterday at recreation."[3] But Guynemer

immediately added:

"It gives so much pleasure to the poilus watching us down there."[4]

[Footnote 3: Henri Lavedan (_L'Illustration_ of October 6, 1917).]

[Footnote 4: Pierre l'Ermite (_La Croix_ of October 7, 1917).]

The sky-juggler was working for his brother the infantryman. As the

singing lark lifts the peasant's head, bent over his furrow, so the

conquering airplane, with its overturnings, its "loopings," its close

veerings, its spirals, its tail spins, its "zooms," its dives, all its

tricks of flight, amuses for a while the sad laborers in the trenches.

May my readers, when they have finished this little book, composed

according to the rules of the boy, Paul Bailly, lift their heads and

seek in the sky whither he carried, so often and so high, the tricolor

of France, an invisible and immortal Guynemer!

CANTO I

CHILDHOOD

I. THE GUYNEMERS

In his book on Chivalry, the good Léon Gautier, beginning with the

knight in his cradle and wishing to surround him immediately with a

supernatural atmosphere, interprets in his own fashion the sleeping baby

smiling at the angels. "According to a curious legend, the origin of

which has not as yet been clearly discovered," he explains, "the child

during its slumber hears 'music,' the incomparable music made by the

movement of the stars in their spheres. Yes, that which the most

illustrious scholars have only been able to suspect the existence of is

distinctly heard by these ears scarcely opened as yet, and ravishes

them. A charming fable, giving to innocence more power than to proud

science."[5]

[Footnote 5: _La Chevalerie_, by Léon Gautier. A. Walter ed. 1895.]

The biographer of Guynemer would like to be able to say that our new

knight also heard in his cradle the music of the stars, since he was to

be summoned to approach them. But it can be said, at least, that during

his early years he saw the shadowy train of all the heroes of French

history, from Charlemagne to Napoleon.

Georges Marie Ludovic Jules Guynemer was born in Paris one Christmas

Eve, December 24, 1894. He saw then, and always, the faces of three

women, his mother and his two elder sisters, standing guard over his

happiness. His father, an officer (Junior Class '80, Saint-Cyr), had

resigned in 1890. An ardent scholar, he became a member of the

Historical Society of Compiègne, and while examining the charters of the

_Cartulaire de royallieu_, or writing a monograph on the _Seigneurie

d'Offémont_, he verified family documents of the genealogy of his

family. Above all, it was he in reality who educated his son.

Guynemer is a very old French name. In the _Chanson de Roland_ one

Guinemer, uncle of Ganelon, helped Roland to mount at his departure. A

Guinemer appears in _Gaydon_ (the knight of the jay), which describes

the sorrowful return of Charlemagne to Aix-la-Chapelle after the drama

of Roncevaux; and a Guillemer figures in _Fier-à-Bras_, in which

Charlemagne and the twelve peers conquer Spain. This Guillemer l'Escot

is made prisoner along with Oliver, Bérart de Montdidier, Auberi de

Bourgoyne, and Geoffroy l'Angevin.

In the eleventh century the family of Guynemer left Flanders for

Brittany. When the French Revolution began, there were still Guynemers

in Brittany,[6] but the greatgrandfather of our hero, Bernard, was

living in Paris in reduced circumstances, giving lessons in law. Under

the Empire he was later to be appointed President of the Tribunal at

Mayence, the chief town in the country of Mont Tonnerre. Falling into

disfavor after 1815, he was only President of the Tribunal of Gannat.

[Footnote 6: There are still Guynemers there. M. Etienne Dupont, Judge

in the Civil Court of Saint-Malo, sent me an extract from an _aveu

collectif_ of the "Leftenancy of Tinténiac de Guinemer des Rabines." The

Guynemers, in more recent times, have left traces in the county of

Saint-Malo, where Mgr. Guynemer de la Hélandière inaugurated, in

September, 1869, the Tour Saint-Joseph, house of the Little Sisters of

the Poor in Saint-Pern.]

Here, thanks to an unusual circumstance, oral tradition takes the place

of writings, charters, and puzzling trifles. One of the four sons of

Bernard Guynemer, Auguste, lived to be ninety-three, retaining all his

faculties. Toward the end he resembled Voltaire, not only in face, but

in his irony and skepticism. He had all sorts of memories of the

Revolution, the Empire, and the Restoration, of which he told

extraordinary anecdotes. His longevity was owing to his having been

discharged from military service at the conscription. Two of his three

brothers died before maturity: one, Alphonse, infantry officer, was

killed at Vilna in 1812, and the other, Jules, naval officer, died in

1802 as the result of wounds received at Trafalgar. The last son,

Achille, whom we shall presently refer to again, was to perpetuate the

family name.

Auguste Guynemer remembered very vividly the day when he faced down

Robespierre. He was at that time eight years old, and the mistress of

his school had been arrested. He came to the school as usual and found

there were no classes. Where was his teacher? he asked. At the

Revolutionary Tribunal. Where was the Revolutionary Tribunal? Jestingly

they told him where to find it, and he went straight to the place,

entered, and asked back the captive. The audience looked at the little

boy with amazement, while the judges joked and laughed at him. But

without being discomposed, he explained the purpose of his visit. The

incident put Robespierre in good humor, and he told the child that his

teacher had not taught him anything. Immediately, as a proof of the

contrary, the youngster began to recite his lessons. Robespierre was so

delighted that, in the midst of general laughter, he lifted up the boy

and kissed him. The prisoner was restored to him, and the school

reopened.

However, of the four sons of the President of Mayence, the youngest

only, Achille, was destined to preserve the family line. Born in 1792, a

volunteer soldier at the age of fifteen, his military career was

interrupted by the fall of the Empire. He died in Paris, in the rue

Rossini, in 1866. Edmond About, who had known his son at Saverne, wrote

the following biographical notice:

A child of fifteen years enlisted as a Volunteer in 1806. Junot

found him intelligent, made him his secretary, and took him to

Spain. The young man won his epaulettes under Colonel Hugo in 1811.

He was made prisoner on the capitulation of Guadalajara in 1812,

but escaped with two of his comrades whom he saved at the peril of

his own life. Love, or pity, led a young Spanish girl to aid in

this heroic episode, and for several days the legend threatened to

become a romance. But the young soldier reappeared in 1813 at the

passage of the Bidassoa, where he was promoted lieutenant in the

4th Hussars, and was given the Cross by the Emperor, who seldom

awarded it. The return of the Bourbons suddenly interrupted this

career, so well begun. The young cavalry officer then undertook the

business of maritime insurance, earning honorably a large fortune,

which he spent with truly military generosity, strewing his road

with good deeds. He continued working up to the very threshold of

death, for he resigned only a month ago, and it was yesterday,

Thursday, that we laid him in his tomb at the age of seventy-five.

His name was Achille Guynemer. His family is related to the Benoist

d'Azy, the Dupré de Saint-Maur, the Cochin, de Songis, du Trémoul

and Vasselin families, who have left memories of many exemplary

legal careers passed in Paris. His son, who wept yesterday as a

child weeps before the tomb of such a father, is the new

Sub-Prefect of Saverne, the young and laborious administrator who,

from the beginning, won our gratitude and friendship.

The story of the escape from Spain contributes another page to the

family traditions. The young Spanish girl had sent the prisoner a silken

cord concealed in a pie. A fourth companion in captivity was

unfortunately too large to pass through the vent-hole of the prison, and

was shot by the English. It was August 31, 1813, after the passage of

the Bidassoa, that Lieutenant Achille Guynemer was decorated with the

Cross of the Legion of Honor. He was then twenty-one years of age. His

greatgrandson, who resembled the portraits of Achille (especially a

drawing done in 1807), at least in the proud carriage of the head, was

to receive the Cross at an even earlier age.

There were other epic souvenirs which awakened Georges Guynemer's

curiosity in childhood. He was shown the sword and snuffbox of General

Count de Songis, brother of his paternal grandmother. This sword of

honor had been presented to the general by the Convention when he was

merely a captain of artillery, for having saved the cannon of the

fortress at Valenciennes,--though it is quite true that Dumouriez, for

the same deed, wished to have him hanged. The snuffbox was given him by

the Emperor for having commanded the passage of the Rhine during the Ulm

campaign.

Achille Guynemer had two sons. The elder, Amédée, a graduate of the

École polytechnique, died at the age of thirty and left no children. The

second, Auguste, was Sub-Prefect of Saverne under the Second Empire;

and, resigning this office after the war of 1870, he became

Vice-President of the society for the protection of Alsatians and

Lorrainers, the President of which was the Count d'Haussonville. He had

married a young Scottish lady, Miss Lyon, whose family included the

Earls of Strathmore, among whose titles were those of Glamis and Cawdor

mentioned by Shakespeare in "Macbeth."

As we have already seen, only one of the four sons of the President of

Mayence--the hero of the Bidassoa--had left descendants. His son is M.

Paul Guynemer, former officer and historian of the _Cartulaire de

Royallieu_ and of the _Seigneurie d'Offémont_, whose only son was the

aviator. The race whose history is lost far back in the _Chanson de

Roland_ and the Crusades, which settled in Flanders, and then in

Brittany, but became, as soon as it left the provinces for the capital,

nomadic, changing its base at will from the garrison of the officer to

that of the official, seems to have narrowed and refined its stock and

condensed all the power of its past, all its hopes for the future, in

one last offshoot.

There are some plants, like the aloe, which bear but one flower, and

sometimes only at the end of a hundred years. They prepare their sap,

which has waited so long, and then from the heart of the plant issues a

long straight stem, like a tree whose regular branches look like forged

iron. At the top of this stem opens a marvelous flower, which is moist

and seems to drop tears upon the leaves, inviting them to share its

grief for the doom it awaits. When the flower is withered, the miracle

is never renewed.

Guynemer is the flower of an old French family. Like so many other

heroes, like so many peasants who, in this Great War, have been the

wheat of the nation, his own acts have proved his nobility. But the

fairy sent to preside at his birth laid in his cradle certain gilded

pages of the finest history in the world: Roland, the Crusades, Brittany

and Duguesclin, the Empire, and Alsace.

II. HOME AND COLLEGE

One of the generals best loved by the French troops, General de M----, a

learned talker and charming moralist, who always seemed in his

conversation to wander through the history of France, like a sorcerer in

a forest, weaving and multiplying his spells, once recited to me the

short prayer he had composed for grace to enable him to rear his

children in the best way:

"Monseigneur Saint Louis, Messire Duguesclin, Messire Bayard, help

me to make my sons brave and truthful."

So was Georges Guynemer reared, in the cult of truth, and taught that to

deceive is to lower oneself. Even in his infancy he was already as proud

as any personage. His early years were protected by the gentle and

delicate care of his mother and his two sisters, who hung adoringly over

him and were fascinated by his strange black eyes. What was to become of

a child whose gaze was difficult to endure, and whose health was so

fragile, for when only a few months old he had almost died of infantile

enteritis. His parents had been obliged to carry him hastily to

Switzerland, and then to Hyères, and to keep him in an atmosphere like

that of a hothouse. Petted and spoiled, tended by women, like Achilles

at Scyros among the daughters of Lycomedes, would he not bear all his

life the stamp of too softening an education? Too pretty and too frail,

with his curls and his dainty little frock, he had an _air de

princesse_. His father felt that a mistake was being made, and that this

excess of tenderness must be promptly ended. He took the child on his

knees; a scene as trifling as it was decisive was about to be enacted:

"I almost feel like taking you with me, where I am going."

"Where are you going, father?"

"There, where I am going, there are only men."

"I want to go with you."

The father seemed to hesitate, and then to decide:

"After all, too early is better than too late. Put on your hat. I shall

take you." He took him to the hairdresser.

"I am going to have my hair cut. How do you feel about it?"

"I want to do like men."

The child was set upon a stool where, in the white combing-cloth, with

his curly hair, he resembled an angel done by an Italian Primitive. For

an instant the father thought himself a barbarian, and the barber

hesitated, scissors in air, as before a crime. They exchanged glances;

then the father stiffened and gave the order. The beautiful curls fell.

But now it became necessary to return home; and when his mother saw him,

she wept.

"I am a man," the child announced, peremptorily.

He was indeed to be a man, but he was to remain for a long time also a

mischievous boy--nearly, in fact, until the end.

When he was six or seven years old he began to study with the teacher of

his sisters, which was convenient and agreeable, but meant the addition

of another petticoat. The fineness of his feelings, his fear of having

wounded any comrade, which were later to inspire him in so many touching

actions, were the result of this feminine education. His walks with his

father, who already gave him much attention, brought about useful

reactions. Compiègne is rich in the history of the past: kings were

crowned there, and kings died there. The Abbey of Saint Cornille

sheltered, perhaps, the holy winding-sheet of Christ. Treaties were

signed at Compiègne, and there magnificent fêtes were given by Louis

XIV, Louis XV, Napoleon I, and Napoleon III. And even in 1901 the child

met Czar Nicholas and Czarina Alexandra, who were staying there. So, the

palace and the forest spoke to him of a past which his father could

explain. And on the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville he was much interested in

the bronze statue of the young girl, bearing a banner.

"Who is it?"

"Jeanne d'Arc."

Georges Guynemer's parents renounced the woman teacher, and in order to

keep him near them, entered him as a day scholar at the lyceum of

Compiègne. Here the child worked very little. M. Paul Guynemer, having

been educated at Stanislas College, in Paris, wished his son also to go

there. Georges was then twelve years old.

"In a photograph of the pupils of the Fifth (green) Class," wrote a

journalist in the _Journal des Débats_, who had had the curiosity to

investigate Georges' college days, "may be seen a restless-looking

little boy, thinner and paler than the others, whose round black eyes

seem to shine with a somber brilliance. These eyes, which, eight or ten

years later, were to hunt and pursue so many enemy airplanes, are

passionately self-willed. The same temperament is evident in a snapshot

of this same period, in which Georges is seen playing at war. The

college registers of this year tell us that he had a clear, active,

well-balanced mind, but that he was thoughtless, mischief-making,

disorderly, careless; that he did not work, and was undisciplined,

though without any malice; that he was very proud, and 'ambitious to

attain first rank': a valuable guide in understanding the character of

one who became 'the ace of aces.' In fact, at the end of the year young

Guynemer received the first prize for Latin translation, the first prize

for arithmetic, and four honorable mentions."

The author of the _Débats_ article, who is a scholar, recalls Michelet's

_mot_: "The Frenchman is that naughty child characterized by the good

mother of Duguesclin as 'the one who is always fighting the others....'"

But the best portrait of Guynemer as a child I find in the unpublished

notes of Abbé Chesnais, who was division prefect at Stanislas College

during the four years which Guynemer passed there. The Abbé Chesnais had

divined this impassioned nature, and watched it with troubled sympathy.

"His eyes vividly expressed the headstrong, fighting nature of the boy,"

he says of his pupil. "He did not care for quiet games, but was devoted

to those requiring skill, agility, and force. He had a decided

preference for a game highly popular among the younger classes--_la

petite guerre_. The class was divided into two armies, each commanded by

a general chosen by the pupils themselves, and having officers of all

ranks under his orders. Each soldier wore on his left arm a movable

brassard. The object of the battle was the capture of the flag, which

was set up on a wall, a tree, a column, or any place dominating the

courtyard. The soldier from whom his brassard was taken was considered

dead.

"Guynemer, who was somewhat weak and sickly, always remained a private

soldier. His comrades, appreciating the value of having a general with

sufficient muscular strength to maintain his authority, never dreamed of

placing him at their head. The muscle, which he lacked, was a necessity.

But when a choice of soldiers had to be made, he was always counted

among the best, and his name called among the first. Although he had not

much strength, he had agility, cleverness, a quick eye, caution, and a

talent for strategy. He played his game himself, not liking to receive

any suggestions from his chiefs, intending to follow his own ideas. The

battle once begun, he invariably attacked the strongest enemy and

pursued those comrades who occupied the highest rank. With the marvelous

suppleness of a cat, he climbed trees, flung himself to the ground,

crept along barriers, slipped between the legs of his adversaries, and

bounded triumphantly off with a number of brassards. It was a great joy

to him to bring the trophies of his struggles to his general. With

radiant face, and with his two hands resting on his legs, he looked

mockingly at his adversaries who had been surprised by his cleverness.

His superiority over his comrades was especially apparent in the battles

they fought in the woods of Bellevue.[7] There the field was larger, and

there was a greater variety of chances for surprising the enemy. He hid

himself under the dead leaves, lay close to the branches of trees, and

crept along brooks and ravines. It was often he who was selected to find

a place of vantage for the flag. But he was never willing to act as its

guardian, for he feared nothing so much as inactivity, preferring to

chase his comrades through the woods. The short journey to the Bellevue

woods was passed in the elaboration of various plans, and arguing about

those of his friends; he always wanted to have the last word. The return

journey was enlivened by biting criticism, which often ended in a

quarrel."[8]

[Footnote 7: The country house of Stanislas College is at Bellevue.

[Translator's note.]]

[Footnote 8: Unpublished notes by Abbé Chesnais.]

This is an astonishing portrait, in which nearly all the characteristics

of the future Guynemer, Guynemer the fighter, are apparent. He does not

care to command, he likes too well to give battle, and is already the

knight of single combats. His method is personal, and he means to

follow his own ideas. He attacks the strongest; neither size nor number

stops him. His suppleness and skill are unequaled. He lacks the muscle

for a good gymnast, and at the parallel bars, or the fixed bar, he is

the despair of his instructors. How will he supply this deficiency?

Simply by the power of his will. All physical games do not require

physical strength, and he became an excellent shot and fencer. Furious

at his own weakness, he outdid the strong, and, like Diomede and Ajax,

brought back his trophies laughing. A college courtyard was not

sufficient for him: he needed the Bellevue woods, while he waited to

have all space, all the sky, at his disposal. So the warlike infancy of

a Guynemer is like that of a Roland, a Duguesclin, a Bayard,--all are

ardent hearts with indomitable energy, upright souls developing early,

whose passion it was only necessary to control.

The youth of Guynemer was like his childhood. As a student of higher

mathematics his combative tendencies were not at all changed. "At

recreation he was very fond of roller-skating, which in his case gave

rise to many disputes and much pugilism. Having no respect for boys who

would not play, he would skate into the midst of their group, pushing

them about, seizing their arms and forcing them to waltz round and round

with him like weather-cocks. Then he would be off at his highest speed,

pursued by his victims. Blows were exchanged, which did not prevent him

from repeating the same thing a few seconds later. At the end of

recreation, with his hair disordered, his clothes covered with dust,

his face and hands muddy, Guynemer was exhausted. But the strongest of

his comrades could not frighten him; on the contrary, he attacked these

by preference. The masters were often obliged to intervene and separate

the combatants. Guynemer would then straighten up like a cock, his eyes

sparkling and obtruding, and, unable to do more, would crush his

adversary with piquant and sometimes cutting words uttered in a dry,

railing voice."[9]

[Footnote 9: Unpublished notes by Abbé Chesnais.]

Talking, however, was not his forte, and his nervousness made him

sputter. His speech was vibrant, trenchant, like hammerstrokes, and he

said things to which there was no answer. He had a horror of discussion:

he was already all action.

This violence and frenzied action would have driven him to the most

unreasonable and dangerous audacity if they had not been counterbalanced

by his sense of honor. "He was one of those," wrote a comrade of

Guynemer's, M. Jean Constantin, now lieutenant of artillery, "for whom

honor is sacred, and must not be disregarded under any pretext; and in

his life, in his relations with his comrades, his candor and loyalty

were only equaled by his goodness. Often, in the midst of our games,

some dispute arose. Where are the friends who have never had a dispute?

Sometimes we were both so obstinate that we fought, but after that he

was willing to renounce the privilege of the last word. He never could

have endured bringing trouble upon his fellow-students. He never

hesitated to admit a fault; and, what is much better, once when one of

his comrades, who was a good student, had inadvertently made a foolish

mistake which might have lowered his marks, I saw Georges accuse himself

and take the punishment in his place. His comrade never knew anything

about it, for Georges did that sort of thing almost clandestinely, and

with the simplicity and modesty which were always the great charm of his

character."

This sense of honor he had drawn in with his mother's milk; and his

father had developed it in him. Everything about him indicated pride:

the upright carriage of his head, the glance of his black eyes which

seemed to pierce the objects he looked at. He loved the Stanislas

uniform which his father had worn before him, and which had been worn by

Gouraud and Baratier, whose fame was then increasing, and Rostand, then

in all the new glory of _Cyrano_ and _L'Aiglon_. He had an exact

appreciation of his own dignity. Though he listened attentively in

class, he would never ask for information or advice from his classmates.

He hated to be trifled with, and made it understood that he intended to

be respected. Never in all his life did he have a low thought. If he

ever varied from the nobleness which was natural to him, silence was

sometimes sufficient to bring him to himself.

With a mobile face, full of contrasts, he was sometimes the roguish boy

who made the whole class shake with laughter, and involved it in a

whirlwind of games and tricks, and at others the serious, thoughtful

pupil, who was considered to be self-absorbed, distant, and not inclined

to reveal himself to anybody. The fierce soldier of the _petite guerre_

was also a formidable adversary at checkers. Here, however, he became

patient, only moving his pieces after long reflection. None of the

students could beat him, and no one could take him by surprise. If he

was beaten by a professor, he never rested until he had had his revenge.

His power of will was far beyond his years, but it needed to be relaxed.

To study and win to the head of his class was nothing for his lively

intelligence, but his health was always delicate. He would appear

wrapped in cloaks, comforters, waterproof coats, and then vanish into

the infirmary. This boy who did not fear blows, bruises, or falls, was

compelled to avoid draughts and to diet. Nobody ever heard him complain,

nor was any one ever to do so. Often he had to give up work for whole

months at a time; and in his baccalaureate year he was stopped by a

return of the infantile enteritis. "Three months of rest," the doctor

ordered at Christmas. "You will do your rhetoric over again next year,"

said his father, who came to take him home. "Not at all," said the boy;

"the boys shall not get ahead of me"--a childish boast which passed

unnoticed. At the end of three months of rest and pleasant walks around

Compiègne, the child remarked: "The three months are up, and I mean to

present myself in July." "You haven't time; it is impossible." He

insisted. So they discovered, at Compiègne, the Pierre d'Ailly school,

in a building which since then has been ruined by a shell. It was his

idea to attend these classes as a day scholar, just for the pleasure of

it. He promised to continue to take care of himself at home. And in the

month of July, at the age of fifteen, he took his bachelor degree, with

mention.

But the bow cannot long remain bent, and hence certain diversions of

his, ending sometimes in storms, but not caused by any ill-will on his

part, for it was repugnant to him to give others pain. The following

autumn he returned to Stanislas College, and resumed his school

exploits.

"Vexed to find that a place had been reserved for him near the

professor, under the certainly justified pretext that he was too much

inclined to talk," again writes Abbé Chesnais, "he was resolved to talk

all the same, whenever he pleased. With the aid of pins, pens, wires and

boxes, he soon set up a telephone which put him into communication with

the boy whose desk was farthest away. He possessed tools necessary for

any of his tricks, and his desk was a veritable bazaar: copybooks,

books, pen-holders and paper were mixed pell-mell with the most unlikely

objects, such as fragments of fencing foils, drugs, chemical products,

oil, grease, bolts, skate wheels, and tablets of chocolate. In one

corner, carefully concealed, were some glass tubes which awaited a

favorable moment for projecting against the ceiling a ball of chewed

paper. Attached to this ball, a paper personage cut out of a copybook

cover danced feverishly in space. When this grotesque figurine became

quiet, another paper ball, shot with great skill, renewed the dancing

to the great satisfaction of the young marksman. Airplanes made of paper

were also hidden in this desk, awaiting the propitious hour for

launching them; and the professor's desk sometimes served as their

landing place.... Everything, indeed, was to be found there, but in such

disorder that the owner himself could never find them. Who has not seen

him hunting for a missing exercise in a copybook full of scraps of

paper? It is time to go to class; with his head hidden in his desk, he

turns over all its contents in great haste, upsetting a badly closed

ink-bottle over his books and copybooks. The master calls him to order,

and he rushes out well behind all the rest of the boys.

"He was not one of those ill-intentioned boys whose sole idea is to

disturb the class and hinder the work of his comrades. Nor was he a

ringleader. He acted entirely on his own account, and for his own

satisfaction. His practical jokes never lasted long, and did not

interrupt the work of others. His upright, frank and honest nature

always led him to acknowledge his own acts when the master attributed

them by mistake to the wrong boys. He never allowed any comrade to take

his punishment for him, but he knew very well how to extricate himself

from the greatest difficulties. His candor often won him some

indulgence. If he happened to be punished by a timorous master, he

assumed a terrible facial expression and tried to frighten him. But

when, on the contrary, he found himself in the presence of a man of

energy, he pleaded extenuating circumstances, and persevered until he

obtained the least possible punishment. He never resented the infliction

of just punishment, but suffered very much when punished in public. On

the day when the class marks were read aloud, if he suspected that his

own were to be bad, he took refuge in the infirmary to avoid the shame

of public exposure. Honor, for him, was not a vain word.

"He was very sensitive to reproaches. He was an admirer of courage,

audacity, anything generous. Who at Stanislas does not remember his

proud and haughty attitude when a master vexed him in presence of his

classmates, or interfered to end a quarrel in which his own self-respect

was at stake? All his nerves were stretched; his body stiffened, and he

stood as straight as a steel rod, his arms pressed against his legs, his

fists tightly closed, his head held high and rigid, and his face as

yellow as ivory, with its smooth forehead, and his compressed lips

cutting two deep lines around his mouth; his eyes, fixed like two black

balls, seemed to start from the sockets, shooting fire. He looked as if

he were about to destroy his adversary with lightning, but in reality he

retained the most imperturbable sang-froid. He stood like a marble

statue, but it was easy to divine the storm raging within...."[10]

[Footnote 10: Unpublished notes by Abbé Chesnais.]

His tendency, after taking his bachelor's degree, was towards science;

he was ambitious to enter the École polytechnique, and joined the

special mathematics class. Even when very young he had shown particular

aptitude for mechanics, and a gift for invention which we have seen

exercised in his practical jokes as a student. When he was only four or

five years old he constructed a bed out of paper, which he raised by

means of cords and pulleys.

"He passed whole hours," says his Stanislas classmate, Lieutenant

Constantin, "in trying to solve a mathematical problem, or studying some

question which had interested him, without knowing what went on around

him; but as soon as he had solved his problem, or learned something new,

he was satisfied and returned to the present. He was particularly

interested in everything connected with the sciences. His greatest

pleasure was to make experiments in physics or chemistry: he tried

everything which his imagination suggested. Once he happened to produce

a detonating mixture which made a formidable explosion, but nothing was

broken except a few windows."

His choice of reading revealed the same tendency. He was not fond of

reading, and only liked books of adventure which were food for his

warlike sentiments and his ideas of honor and honesty. He preferred the

works of Major Driant, and re-read them even during his mathematical

year. Returning from a walk one Thursday evening, he knocked on the

prefect's door to ask for a book. He wanted _La Guerre fatale_, _La

Guerre de Demain_, _L'Aviateur du Pacifique_, etc. "But you have already

read them." "That does not matter." Did he really re-read them? His

dreams were always the same, and his eyes looked into the future.

Somebody, however, was to exert over this impressionable, mobile, almost

too ardent nature, an influence which was to determine its direction.

His father had advised him to choose his friends with care, and not

yield himself to the first comer. He was not only incapable of doing

that, but equally incapable of yielding himself to anybody. Do we really

choose our friends in early life? We only know our friends by finding

them in our lives when we need them. They are there, but we have not

sought them. A similarity of taste, of sensibility, of ambitions draw us

to them, and they have been our friends a long time already before we

perceive that they are not merely comrades. Thus Jean Krebs became the

constant companion of Georges Guynemer. The father of Jean Krebs is that

Colonel Krebs whose name is connected with the first progress made in

aërostation and aviation. He was then director of the Panhard factories,

and his two sons were students at Stanislas. Jean, the elder, was

Guynemer's classmate. He was a silent, self-centered, thoughtful

student, calm in speech and facial expression, never speaking one word

louder than another, and the farthest possible removed from anything

noisy or agitated. Georges broke in upon his solitude and attached

himself to him, while Krebs endured, smiled, and accepted, and they

became allies. It was Krebs, for the time, who was the authority, the

one who had prestige and wore the halo. Why, he knew what an automobile

was, and one Sunday he took his friend Georges to Ivry and taught him

how to drive. He taught him every technical thing he knew. Georges

launched with all his energy into this new career, and soon became

acquainted with every motor in existence. During the school promenades,

if the column of pupils walked up or down the Champs Elysées, he told

them the names of passing automobiles: "That's a Lorraine. There is a

Panhard. This one has so many horsepower," etc. Woe to any who ventured

to contradict him. He looked the insolent one up and down, and crushed

him with a word.

He was overjoyed when the college organized Thursday afternoon visits to

factories. He chose his companions in advance, sometimes compelling them

to give up a game of tennis. Krebs was one of them. For Georges the

visits to the Puteaux and Dion-Bouton factories were a feast of which he

was often to speak later. He went, not as a sightseer, but as a

connoisseur. He could not bring himself to remain with the engineer who

showed the party through the works. He required more liberty, more time

to investigate everything for himself, to see and touch everything. The

smallest detail interested him; he questioned the workmen, asking them

the use of some screw, and a thousand other things. The visit was too

soon over for him; and when his comrades had already left, and the

division prefect was calling the roll to make sure of all his boys,

Guynemer as usual was missing, and was discovered standing in ecstasy

before a machine which some workmen were engaged in setting up.

"The opening weeks of the automobile and aviation exhibition were a

period of comparative tranquillity for his masters, as Guynemer was no

longer the same restless, nervous, mischievous boy, being too anxious to

retain his privileges for the promenades. He was always one of those who

haunted the prefect when the hour for departure drew near. He was

impatient to know where they were to go: 'Where are we going?... Shall

you take us to the Grand Palais? (The Automobile and Aviation

Exhibition).... Wouldn't you be a brick!...' When they arrived, he was

not one of those many curious people who circulate aimlessly around the

stands with their hands in their pockets, without reaping anything but

fatigue, like a cyclist on a circular track. His plans were all made in

advance, and he knew where the stand was which he meant to visit. He

went directly there, where his ardor and his free and easy behavior drew

upon him the admonitions of the proprietor. But nothing stopped him, and

he continued to touch everything, furnishing explanations to his

companions. When he returned to the college his pockets bulged with

prospectuses, catalogues, and selected brochures, which he carefully

added to the heterogeneous contents of his desk."[11]

[Footnote 11: Unpublished notes by Abbé Chesnais.]

Jean Krebs crystallized Georges Guynemer's vocation. He developed and

specialized his taste for mechanics, separating it from vague

abstractions and guiding it towards material realities and the wider

experiences these procure. He deserves to be mentioned in any biography

of Guynemer, and before passing on, it is proper that his premature loss

should be cited and deplored. Highly esteemed as an aviator during the

war, he made the best use of his substantial and reliable faculties in

the work of observation. Airplane chasing did not attract him, but he

knew how to use his eyes. He was killed in a landing accident at a time

almost coincident with the disappearance of Guynemer. One of his

escadrille mates described him thus: "With remarkable intelligence, and

a perfectly even disposition, his chiefs valued him for his sang-froid,

his quick eye, his exact knowledge of the services he was able to

perform. Every time a mission was intrusted to him, everybody was sure

that he would accomplish it, no matter what conditions he had to meet.

He often had to face enemy airplanes better armed than his own, and in

the course of a flight had been wounded in the thigh by an exploding

shell. Nevertheless he had continued to fly, only returning considerably

later when his task was done. His death has left a great void in this

escadrille. Men like him are difficult to replace...."

Thus the immoderate Guynemer had for his first friend a comrade who knew

exactly his own limits. Guynemer could save Jean Krebs from his excess

of literal honesty by showing him the enchantment of his own ecstasies,

but Jean Krebs furnished the motor for Guynemer's ambitious young wings.

Without the technical lessons of Jean Krebs, could Guynemer later have

got into the aviation field at Pau, and won so easily his diploma as

pilot? Would he have applied himself so closely to the study of his

tools and the perfecting of his machine?

The war was to make them both aviators, and both of them fell from the

sky, one in the fullness of glory, the other almost obscure. When they

talked together on school outings, or as they walked along beside the

walls of Stanislas, had they ever foreseen this destiny? Certainly not

Jean Krebs, with his positive spirit; he only saw ahead the École

polytechnique, and thought of nothing but preparation for that. But

Guynemer? In his very precious notes, Abbé Chesnais shows us the boy

constructing a little airplane of cloth, the motor of which was a bundle

of elastics. "At the next recreation hour, he went up to the dormitory,

opened a window, launched his machine, and presided over its evolutions

above the heads of his comrades." But these were only the games of an

ingenious collegian. The worthy priest, who was division prefect, and

watched the boy with a profound knowledge of psychology, never received

any confidence from him regarding his vocation.

Aviation, whose first timid essays began in 1906, progressed rapidly.

After Santos Dumont, who on November 22, 1906, covered 220 meters while

volplaning, a group of inventors--Blériot, Delagrange, Farman,

Wright--perfected light motors. In 1909 Blériot crossed the Channel,

Paulhan won the height record at 1380 meters, and Farman the distance

record over a course of 232 kilometers. A visionary, Viscomte Melchior

de Vogué, had already foreseen the prodigious development of air-travel.

All the young people of the time longed to fly. Guynemer, studying the

new invention with his customary energy, could hardly do otherwise than

share the general infatuation. His comrades, like himself, dreamed of

parts of airplanes and their construction. But the idea of Lieutenant

Constantin is different: "When an airplane flew over the quarter,

Guynemer followed it with his eyes, and continued to gaze at the sky for

some time after its disappearance. His desk contained a whole collection

of volumes and photographs concerning aviation. He had resolved to go up

some day in an airplane, and as he was excessively self-willed he tried

to bring this about by every means in his power. 'Don't you know anybody

who could take me up some Sunday?' Of whom has he not asked this

question? But at college it was not at all easy, and it was during

vacation that he succeeded in carrying out his project. If I am not

mistaken, his first ascension was at the aërodrome of Compiègne. At that

time the comfortable cockpits of the modern airplanes were unknown, and

the passenger was obliged to place himself as best he could behind the

pilot and cling to him by putting his arms around him in order not to

fall, so that it was a relief to come down again!..."

The noticeable sentence in these notes is the first one: _When an

airplane flew over the quarter, he followed it with his eyes, and

continued to gaze at the sky for some time after its disappearance._ If

Jean Krebs had survived, he could perhaps enlighten us still further;

but, even to this reasonable friend, could Guynemer have revealed what

was still confused to himself? Jean Constantin only saw him once in a

reverie; and Guynemer must have kept silent about his resolutions.

Soon afterwards, as Guynemer was obliged once more to renounce his

studies--and this was the year in which he was preparing for the

Polytechnique--his father left him with his grandmother in Paris, to

rest. During this time he went to lectures on the social sciences,

finally completing his education, which was strictly French, not one day

having been passed with any foreign teacher. After this he traveled with

his mother and sisters, leading the life of the well-to-do young man who

has plenty of time in which to plan his future. Was he thinking of his

future at all? The question occurred to his father who, worried at the

thought of his son's idleness, recalled him and interrogated him as to

his ideas of a future career, fully expecting to receive one of those

undecided answers so often given by young men under similar

circumstances. But Georges replied, as if it were the most natural thing

in the world, and no other could ever have been considered:

"Aviator."

This reply was surprising. What could have led him to a determination

apparently so sudden?

"That is not a career," he was told. "Aviation is still only a sport.

You travel in the air as a motorist rides on the highways. And after

passing a few years devoted to pleasure, you hire yourself to some

constructor. No, a thousand times no!"

Then he said to his father what he had never said to anybody, and what

his comrade Constantin had merely suspected:

"That is my sole passion. One morning in the courtyard at Stanislas I

saw an airplane flying. I don't know what happened to me: I felt an

emotion so profound that it was almost religious. You must believe me

when I ask your permission to be an aviator."

"You don't know what an airplane is. You never saw one except from

below."

"You are mistaken; I went up in one at Corbeaulieu."

Corbeaulieu was an aërodrome near Compiègne; and these words were spoken

a very few months before the war.

* * * * *

Many years before Georges Guynemer was a student at Stanislas, a

professor, who was also destined to become famous, taught rhetoric

there. His name was Frédéric Ozanam. He too had been a precocious child,

prematurely sure of his vocation for literature. When only fifteen he

had composed in Latin verse an epitaph in honor of Gaston de Foix, dead

at Ravenna. This epitaph, if two words are changed--_Hispanae_ into

_hostilis_, and _Gaston_ into _Georges_--describes perfectly the short

and admirable career of Guynemer. Even the palms are included:

Fortunate heros! moriendo in saecula vives.

Eia, agite, o socii, manibus profundite flores,

Lilia per tumulum, violamque rosamque recentem

Spargite; victricis armis superaddite lauros,

Et tumulo tales mucrone inscribite voces:

Hic jacet hostilis gentis timor et decus omne

Gallorum, Georgius, conditus ante diem:

Credidit hunc Lachesis juvenem dum cerneret annos,

Sed palmas numerans credidit esse senem.[12]

It is a paraphrase of the reply of the gods to the young Pallas, in

Virgil.

[Footnote 12:

Fortunate hero! thou diest, but thou shalt live forever!

Come, my companions! strew flowers

And lilies over the tomb! violets and young roses

Scatter; heap up laurels upon his arms,

And on the stone write with the point of your sword:

Here lieth one who was the terror of the enemy, and the glory

Of the French, George, taken before his time.

Lachesis from his face thought him a boy,

But counting his victories she thought him full of years.]

This young Frédéric Ozanam died in the full vigor of manhood before

having attained his fortieth year, of a malady which had already

foretold his death. At that time he seemed to have achieved perfect

happiness; it was the supreme moment when everything succeeds, when the

difficult years are almost forgotten, and the road mounts easily upward.

He had in his wife a perfect companion, and his daughter was a lovable

young girl. His reputation was growing; he was soon to be received by

the Academy, and fortune and fame were already achieved. And then death

called him. Truly the hour was badly chosen--but when is it chosen at

the will of mortals? Ozanam tried to win pity from death. In his private

journal he notes death's approach, concerning which he was never

deceived; and he asks Heaven for a respite. To propitiate it, he offers

a part of his life, the most brilliant part; he is willing to renounce

honors, fame, and fortune, and will consent to live humbly and be

forgotten, like the poor for whom he founded the _Conférences de

Saint-Vincent de Paul_, and whom he so often visited in their wretched

lodgings; but let him at least dwell a little longer in his home, that

he may see his daughter grow up, and pass a few years more with the

companion of his choice. Finally, he is impassioned by his Faith, he no

longer reasons with Heaven, but says: "Take all according to Thy wish,

take all, take myself. Thy will be done...."

Rarely has the drama of acceptance of the Divine Will been more freely

developed. Now, in the drama which was to impassion Guynemer even to

complete sacrifice, it is not the vocation of aviator that we should

remark, but the absolute will to serve. Abbé Chesnais, who does not

attach primary importance to the vocation, has understood this well. At

the end of his notes he reminds us that Guynemer was a believer who

accomplished his religious exercises regularly, without ostentation and

without weakness. "How many times he has stopped me at night," he

writes, "as I passed near his bed! He wanted a quiet conscience, without

reproach. His usual frivolity left him at the door of the chapel. He

believed in the presence of God in this holy place and respected it....

His Christian sentiments were to be a sustaining power in his aërial

battles, and he would fight with the more ardor if his conscience were

at peace with his God...."

These words of Abbé Chesnais explain the true vocation of Guynemer: "The

chances of war brought out marvelously the qualities contained in such a

frail body. In the beginning did he think of becoming a pilot? Perhaps.

But what he wanted above everything was to fulfil his duty as a

Frenchman. He wanted to be a soldier; he was ashamed of himself, he

said, in the first days of September, 1914: 'If I have to sleep in the

bottom of an automobile truck, I want to go to the front. I will go.'"

He was to go; but neither love of aviation nor love of fame had anything

to do with his departure, as they were to have nothing to do with his

final fate.

III. THE DEPARTURE

In the month of July, 1914, Georges Guynemer was with his family at the

Villa Delphine, Biarritz, in the northern part of the Anglet beach. This

beach is blond with sunshine, but is refreshed by the ocean breezes. One

can be deliciously idle there. This beach is besides an excellent

landing-place for airplanes, because of the welcome of its soft sand.

Georges Guynemer never left the Anglet beach, and every time an airplane

descended he was there to receive it. He was the aviation sentry. But at

this period airplanes were rare. Guynemer had his own thoughts, and

tenacity was one of his dominant traits; he was already one of those who

never renounce. The bathers who passed this everlasting idler never

suspected that he was obstinately developing one single plan, and

hanging his whole future upon it.

Meanwhile the horizon of Europe darkened. Ever since the assassination

of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, at Sarajevo, electricity had

accumulated in the air, and the storm was ready to burst. To this young

man, the Archduke and the European horizon were things of nothing. The

sea-air was healthful, and he searched the heavens for invisible

airplanes. The conversations in progress all around him were full of

anxiety; he had no time to listen to them. The eyes of the women began

to be full of pain; he did not notice the eyes of women. On the second

of August the order for mobilization was posted. It was war!

Then Guynemer rid himself of his dream, as if it were something unreal,

and broke off brusquely all his plans for the future. He was entirely

possessed by another idea, which made his eyes snap fire, and wrinkled

his forehead. He rushed to his father and without taking breath

announced:

"I am going to enlist."

"You are lucky."

"Well, then, you authorize me...."

"I envy you."

He had feared to be met with some parental objection on account of the

uncertain health which had so often thwarted him, and had postponed his

preparation for the École Polytechnique. Now he felt reassured. Next day

he was at Bayonne, getting through all the necessary formalities. He was

medically examined--and postponed. The doctors found him too tall, too

thin--no physiological defect, but a child's body in need of being

developed and strengthened. In vain he supplicated them; they were

pitiless. He returned home grieved, humiliated, and furious. The Villa

Delphine was to know some very uncomfortable days. His family understood

his determination and began to have fears for him. And he returned to

the charge, and attacked his father with insistence, as if his father

were all-powerful and could, if he would, compel them to accept his

son's services for _la Patrie_.

"If you would help me, I should not be put off."

"But how?"

"A former officer has connections in the army. You could speak for me."

"Very well, I will."

M. Guynemer, in his turn, went to Bayonne. From that date, indeed from

the first day of war, he had promised himself never to set obstacles in

the way of his son's military service, but to favor it upon all

occasions. He kept his word, as we shall see later, at whatever cost to

himself. The recruiting major listened to his request. It was the hour

of quick enthusiasms, and he had already sustained many assaults and

resisted many importunities.

"Monsieur," he now said, "you may well believe that I accept all who can

serve. I speak to you as a former officer: does your conscience assure

you that your son is fit to carry a knapsack and be a foot-soldier?"

"I could not say that he is."

"Would he make a cavalryman?"

"He can't ride on account of his former enteritis."

"Then you see how it is; it's proper to postpone him. Build him up, and

later on he'll be taken. The war is not finished."

As Georges had been present at this interview, he now saw himself

refused a second time. He returned with his father to Biarritz, pale,

silent, unhappy, and altogether in such a state of anger and bitterness

that his face was altered. Nothing consoled him, nothing amused him. On

those magnificent August days the sea was a waste of sunshine, and the

beach was an invitation to enjoy the soft summer hours; but he did not

go to the beach, and he scorned the sea. His anxious parents wondered

if, for the sake of his health, it would not be easier to see him

depart. As for them, it was their fate to suffer in every way.

Ever since the mobilization, Georges Guynemer had had only one thought:

to serve--to serve, no matter where, no matter how, no matter in what

branch of the service, but to leave, to go to the front, and not stay

there at Biarritz like those foreigners who had not left, or like those

useless old men and children who were now all that remained of the male

population.

Many trains had carried off the first recruits, trains decorated with

flowers and filled with songs. The sons of France had come running from

her farthest provinces, and a unanimous impulse precipitated them upon

the assaulted frontier. But this impulse was perfectly controlled. The

songs the men sang were serious and almost sacred. The nation was living

through one of her greatest hours, and knew it. With one motion she

regained her national unity, and renewed once more her youth.

Meanwhile the news that sifted in, little by little, caused intense

anguish--anguish, not doubt. The government had left Paris to establish

itself at Bordeaux. The capital was menaced. The enemy had entered

Compiègne. Compiègne was no longer ours. The Joan of Arc on the _place_

of the Hôtel de Ville had _pickelhauben_ on her men-at-arms. And then

the victory of the Marne lifted the weight that oppressed every heart.

At the Villa Delphine news came that Compiègne was saved. Meanwhile

trains left carrying troops to reinforce the combatants. And Georges

Guynemer had to live through all these departures, suffering and

rebelling until he had a horror of himself. His comrades and friends

were gone, or had asked permission to go. His two first cousins, his

mother's nephews, Guy and René de Saint Quentin, had gone; one, a

sergeant, was killed at the Battle of the Marne, the other, councilor to

the Embassy at Constantinople, returning in haste when war was declared,

had taken his place as lieutenant of reserves, and had been twice

wounded at the Marne, by a ball in the shoulder and a shrapnel bullet in

the thigh. Was it possible for him to stay there alone when the whole

of France had risen?

In the _Chanson d'Aspremont_, which is one of our most captivating

_chansons de geste_, Charlemagne is leaving for Italy with his army, and

passes by Laon. In the donjon five children, one of whom is his nephew

Roland, are imprisoned under the care of Turpin. The Emperor, who knows

them well, has had them locked up for fear they would join his troops.

But when they hear the ivory horns sounding and the horses neighing,

they are determined to escape. They try to cajole the porter, but he is

adamant and incorruptible. This faithful servitor is immediately well

beaten. They take away his keys, pass over his body, and are soon out of

the prison. But their adventures are only beginning. To procure

themselves horses they attack and unhorse five Bretons, and to get arms

they repeat the same process. They are so successful that they manage to

join the Emperor's army before it has crossed the Alps. Will our new

Roland allow himself to be outdistanced by these terrible children of

former ages? It is not the army with its ivory horns that he has heard

departing, but the whole marching nation, fighting to live and endure,

and to enable honor and justice and right to live and endure with her.

So we find Guynemer once more on the Anglet beach, sad and discomfited.

An airplane capsizes on the sand. What does he care about an

airplane--don't they know that his old passion and dream are dead? Since

August 2 he has not given them a thought. However, he begins a

conversation with the pilot, who is a sergeant. And all at once a new

idea takes possession of him; the old passion revives again under

another form; the dream rises once more.

"How can one enlist in the aviation corps?"

"Arrange it with the captain; go to Pau."

Georges runs at once to the Villa Delphine. His parents no longer

recognize the step and the face of the preceding days; he looks like

their son again; he is saved.

"Father, I want to go to Pau to-morrow."

"Why this trip to Pau?"

"To enlist in the aviation corps. Before the war you wouldn't hear of my

being an aviator, but in war aviation is no longer a sport."

"In war--yes, it is certainly quite another thing."

Next day he reached Pau, where Captain Bernard-Thierry was in command of

the aviation camp. He forced his way through Captain Bernard-Thierry's

door, over the expostulations of the sentries. He explained his case and

pleaded his cause with such fire in his eyes that the officer was dazed

and fascinated. From the tones of the captain's voice, when he referred

to the two successive rejections, Guynemer knew he had made an

impression. As he had done at Stanislas when he wanted to soften some

punishment inflicted by his master, so now he brought every argument to

bear, one after another; but with how much more ardor he made this plea,

for his future was at stake! He bewitched his hearer. And then suddenly

he became a child again, imploring and ready to cry.

"Captain, help me--employ me--employ me at anything, no matter what. Let

me clean those airplanes over there. You are my last resource. It must

be through you that I can do something at last in the war."

The captain reflected gravely. He felt the power hidden in this fragile

body. He could not rebuff a suppliant like this one.

"I can take you as student mechanician."

"That's it, that's it; I understand automobiles."

Guynemer exulted, as Jean Krebs' technical lessons flashed already into

his mind; they would be of great help in his work. The officer gave him

a letter to the recruiting officer at Bayonne, and he went back there

for the third time. This time his name was entered, he was taken, and he

signed a voluntary engagement. This was on November 21, 1914. There was

no need for him to explain to the family what had occurred when he

returned to the Villa Delphine: he was beaming.

"You are going?" said his mother and sisters.

"Surely."

Next day he made his _début_ at the aviation camp at Pau as student

mechanician. He had entered the army by the back door, but he had got

in. The future knight of the air was now the humblest of grooms. "I do

not ask any favors for him," his father wrote to the captain. "All I ask

is that he may perform any services he is capable of." He had to be

tried and proved deserving, to pass through all the minor ranks before

being worthy to wear the _casque sacré_. The petted child of Compiègne

and the Villa Delphine had the most severe of apprenticeships. He slept

on the floor, and was employed in the dirtiest work about camp, cleaned

cylinders and carried cans of petroleum. In this _milieu_ he heard words

and theories which dumbfounded him, not knowing then that men frequently

do not mean all that they say. On November 26, he wrote Abbé Chesnais:

"I have the pleasure of informing you that after two postponements

during a vain effort to enlist, I have at last succeeded. _Time and

patience_ ... I am writing you in the mess, while two comrades are

elaborating social theories...."

Would he be able to endure this workman's existence? His parents were

not without anxiety. They hesitated to leave Biarritz and return to

their home in Compiègne in the rue Saint-Lazare, on the edge of the

forest. But, so far from being injured by manual labor, the child

constantly grew stronger. In his case spirit had always triumphed over

matter, and compelled it to obedience on every occasion. So now he

followed his own object with indomitable energy. He took an airplane to

pieces before mounting in it, and learned to know it in every detail.

His preparation for the École Polytechnique assured him a brilliant

superiority in his present surroundings. He could explain the laws of

mechanics, and tell his wonderstruck comrades what is meant by the

resultant of several forces and the equilibrium of forces, giving them

unexpected notions about kinematics and dynamics.[13] From the

laboratory or industrial experiments then being made, he acquired, on

his part, a knowledge of the resisting power of the materials used in

aviation: wood, steel, steel wires, aluminum and its composites, copper,

copper alloys and tissues. He saw things made--those famous wings that

were one day to carry him up into the blue--with their longitudinal

spars of ash or hickory, their ribs of light wood, their interior

bracing of piano wire, their other bracing wires, and their wing

covering. He saw the workmen prepare all the material for mortise and

tenon work, saw them attach the tension wires, fit in the ends of poles,

and finally connect together all the parts of an airplane,--wings,

rudders, motor, landing frame, body. As a painter grinds his colors

before making use of them, so Guynemer's prelude to his future flights

was to touch with his hands--those long white hands of the rich student,

now tanned and callous, often coated with soot or grease, and worthy to

be the hands of a laborer--every piece, every bolt and screw of these

machines which were to release him from his voluntary servitude.

[Footnote 13: See _Étude raisonnée de l'aéroplane_, by Jules Bordeaux,

formerly student at École Polytechnique (Gauthier-Billars, edition

1912).]

One of his future comrades, _sous-lieutenant_ Marcel Viallet (who one

day had the honor of bringing down two German airplanes in ten minutes

with seven bullets), thus describes him at the Pau school: "I had

already had my attention drawn to this 'little girl' dressed in a

private's uniform whom one met in the camp, his hands covered with

castor oil, his face all stains, his clothes torn. I do not know what he

did in the workshop, but he certainly did not add to its brilliance by

his appearance. We saw him all the time hanging around the 'zincs.' His

highly interested little face amused us. When we landed, he watched us

with such admiration and envy! He asked us endless questions and

constantly wanted explanations. Without seeming to do so, he was

learning. For a reply to some question about the art of flying, he would

have run to the other end of the camp to get us a few drops of gasoline

for our tanks...."[14]

[Footnote 14: _Le Petit Parisien_, September 27, 1917.]

He was learning, and when he saw his way clear, he wanted to begin

flying. New Year's Day arrived--that sad New Year's Day of the first

year of the war. What gifts would he ask of his father? He would ask for

help to win his diploma as pilot. "Don't you know somebody in your class

at Saint-Cyr who could help me?" He always associated his father with

every step he took in advance. The child had no fear of creating a

conflict between his father's love for him and the service due to

France: he knew very well that he would never receive from his father

any counsel against his honor, and without pity he compelled him to

facilitate his son's progress toward mortal danger. Certain former

classmates of M. Guynemer's at Saint-Cyr had, in fact, reached the rank

of general, and the influence of one of them hastened Guynemer's

promotion from student mechanician to student pilot (January 26, 1915).

On this same date, Guynemer, soldier of the 2d Class, began his first

journal of flights. The first page is as follows:

_Wednesday_, January 27: Doing camp chores.

_Thursday_, " 28: ib.

_Friday_, " 29: Lecture and camp chores.

_Saturday_, " 30: Lecture at the Blériot

aërodrome.

_Sunday_, " 31: ib.

aërodrome.

_Monday_, February 1: Went out twenty minutes

on Blériot "roller."

The Blériot "roller," called the Penguin because of its abbreviated

wings, and which did not leave the ground, was followed on Wednesday,

February 17, by a three-cylinder 25 H.P. Blériot, which rose only thirty

or forty meters. These were the first ascensions before launching into

space. Then came a six-cylinder Blériot, and ascensions became more

numerous. Finally, on Wednesday, March 10, the journal records two

flights of twenty minutes each on a Blériot six-cylinder 50 H.P., one at

a height of 600 meters, the other at 800, with tacking and volplaning

descents. This time the child sailed into the sky. Guynemer's first

flight, then, was on March 10, 1915.

This journal, with its fifty pages, ends on July 28, 1916, with the

following statement:

_Friday_, July 28.--Round at the front. Attacked a group of four

enemy airplanes and forced down one of them. Attacked a second

group of four airplanes, which immediately dispersed. Chased one of

the airplanes and fired about 250 cartridges: the Boche dived, and

seemed to be hit. When I shot the last cartridges from the Vickers,

one blade of the screw was perforated with bullet-holes, the

dislocated motor struck the machine violently and seriously injured

it. Volplaned down to the aërodrome of Chipilly without accident.

A marginal note states that the aëroplane which "seemed to be hit" was

brought down, and that the English staff confirmed its fall. This

victory of July 28, 1916, on the Somme, was Guynemer's eleventh; and at

that time he had flown altogether 348 hours, 25 minutes. This journal of

fifty pages enables us to measure the distance covered.

Impassioned young people! You who in every department of achievement

desire to win the trophies of a Guynemer, never forget that your

progress on the path to glory begins with "doing chores."