ENVOI

Tuesday, September 11, 1917.Patrolled. Captain Guynemer started at 8.25 withsous-lieutenantBozon-Verduraz. Found missing after an engagement with a biplane above Poelkapelle (Belgium).

That was all.

Before Guynemer, other knights of the air, other aces, had been reported missing or had perished—some like Captain Le Cour Grandmaison or Captain Auger in our lines, others like Sergeant Sauvage andsous-lieutenantDorme in the enemy's. In fact, he would be the thirteenth on the list if the title of ace is reserved for aviators to whom the controlling board has given its visé for five undoubted victories. These were the names:

Would Guynemer's friends now have to add: Captain Guynemer, 53? Nobody dared to do so, yet nobody now dared hope.

A poet of genius, who even before the war had been an aviator, Gabriele d'Annunzio, has described in his novel,Forse che si forse che no, the friendship of two young men, Paolo Tarsis and Giulio Cambasio, whose mutual affection, arising from a similar longing to conquer the sky, has grown in the perils they dare together. If this book had been written later, war would have intensified its meaning. Instead of dying in a fight, Cambasio is killed in a contest for altitude between Bergamo and the Lake of Garda. As Achilles watched beside the dead body of Patroclus, so Tarsis would not leave to another the guarding of his lost friend:

"In tearless grief Paolo Tarsis kept vigil through the short summer night. So it had broken asunder the richest bough on the tree of his life; the most generous part of himself ruined. For him the beauty of war had diminished, now that he was no longer to see, burning in those dead eyes, the fervor of effort, the security of confidence, the rapidity of resolution. He was no longer to taste the two purest joys of a manly heart: steadiness of eye in attack, and the pride of watching over a beloved peer."

For him the beauty of war had diminished.... War already so long, so exhausting and cruel, and laden with sorrow! Will war appear in its horrid nakedness, now that those who invested it with glory disappear, now, above all, when the king of these heroes, the dazzling young man whose luminous task was known to the whole army, is no more? Is not his loss the loss of something akin to life? For a Guynemer is like the nation's flag: if the soldiers' eyes miss the waving colors, they may wander to the wretchedness of daily routine, and morbidly feed on blood and death. This is what the loss of a Guynemer might mean.

But can a Guynemer be quite lost?

Saint-Pol-sur-Mer,September, 1917

(From the author's diary)

Visited the Storks Escadrille.

The flying field occupies a vast space, for it is common to the French and the British. A dam protecting the landing-ground screens it from the sea. But from the second floor of a little house which the bombs have left standing, you can see its moving expanse of a delicate, I might say timid blue, dotted with home-coming boats. The evening is placid and fine, with a reddish haze blurring the horizon.

Opposite the sheds, with their swelling canvas walls, a row of airplanes is standing before being rolled in for the night. The mechanicians feel them with careful hands, examining the engines, propellers, and wings. The pilots are standing around, still in their leather suits, their helmets in their hands. In brief sentences they sum up their day's experiences.

Mechanically I look among them for the one whom the eye invariably sought first. I recalled his slight figure, his amber complexion, and dark, wonderful eyes, and his quick descriptive gestures. I remembered his ringing, boyish laugh, as he said:

"And then, 'couic'...."

He was life itself. He got out of his seat panting but radiant, quivering, as it were, like the bow-string when it has sent its shaft, and full of the sacred drunkenness of a young god.

Ten days had passed since his disappearance. Nothing more was known than on that eleventh of September when Bozon-Verduraz came back alone. German prisoners belonging to aviation had not heard that he was reported missing. Yet it was inconceivable that such a piece of news should not have been circulated; and, in fact, yesterday a message dropped by a German airplane on the British lines, concerning several English aviators killed or in hospital, was completed by a note saying that Captain Guynemer had been brought down at Poelkapelle on September 10, at 8a.m.But could this message be credited? Both the day and hour it stated were wrong. On September 10 at 8a.m.Guynemer was alive, and even the next day he had not left the camp at the hour mentioned. An English newspaper had announced his disappearance, and perhaps the enemy was merely using the information. The mystery remained unsolved.

As we were discussing these particulars, the last airplanes were landing, one after another, and Guynemer's companions offered their reasons for hoping, or rather believing; but none seemed convinced by his own arguments. Their inner conviction must be that their young chief is dead; and besides, what is death, what is life, to devoting one's all to France?

Captain d'Harcourt had succeeded Major Brocard pro tem as commandant of the unit. He was a very slim, very elegant young man, with the grace and courtesy of theancien régimewhich his name evoked, and the perfection of his manners and gentleness seemed to lend convincing power to all he said. Guynemer being missing and Heurtaux wounded, the Storks were now commanded by Lieutenant Raymond. He belonged to the cavalry, a tall, thin man, with the sharp face and heroic bearing of Don Quixote, a kindly man with a roughness of manner and a quick, picturesque way of expressing himself. Deullin was there, too, one of Guynemer's oldest and most devoted friends. Last of all descended from the high regionssous-lieutenantBozon-Verduraz, a rather heavy man with a serious face, and more maturity than belonged to his years, an unassuming young man with a hatred for exaggeration and a deep respect for the truth.

Once more he went through every detail of the fatal day for me, each particular anticipating the dread issue. But in spite of this narrative, full of the idea of death, I could not think of Guynemer as dead and lying somewhere under the ground held by the enemy. It was impossible for me not to conjure up Guynemer alive and even full of life, Guynemer chasing the enemy with strained terrible eyes, Guynemer of the superhuman will, the Guynemer who never gave up,—in short, a Guynemer whom death could not vanquish.

A wonderful atmosphere men breathe here, for it relieves death of its horror. One officer, Raymond, I think, said in a careless manner:

"Guynemer's fate will be ours, of course."

Somebody protested: "The country needs men like you."

To which Deullin answered: "Why does it? There will be others after us, and the life we lead...."

But Captain d'Harcourt broke in gaily: "Come on; dinner's ready—and with this bright moon and clear sky we are sure to get bombed."

Bombed, indeed, we were, and pretty severely, but in convenient time, for we had just drunk our coffee. A few minutes before, the practiced ear of one of us had caught the sound of thebimoulins, the bi-motor German airplanes, and soon they were near. We gained the sheltering trench. But the night was so entrancingly pure, with the moon riding like an airship in the deep space, that it seemed to promise peace and invited us to enjoy the spectacle. We climbed upon the parapet and listened to the breathing of the sea, accompanying with its bass the music of the motors. There were still a few straggling reddish vapors over the luminous landscape, and the stars seemed dim. But other stars took their place, those of the FrenchVoisinsreturning from some bombing expedition, their lights dotting the sky like a moving constellation, while at intervals a rocket shot from one or the other who was anxious not to miss the landing-ground. Over Dunkirk, eight or ten searchlights stretched out their long white arms, thrusting and raking to and fro after the enemy machines. Suddenly one of these appeared, dazzled by the revealing light, as a moth in the circle of a lamp; our batteries began firing, and we could see the quick sparks of their shells all around it. Flashing bullets, too, drew zebra-like stripes across the sky, and with the cannonade and the rumbling of the airplanes we heard the lament of the Dunkirk sirens announcing the dreaded arrival of the huge 380 shells upon the town, where here and there fires broke out. Meanwhile the German airplanes got rid of their bombs all around us, and we could feel the ground tremble.

The Storks looked on with the indifference of habit, thinking of their beds and awaiting the end. One of them, a weather prophet, said:

"It will be a good day to-morrow; we can start early."

As I spun towards Dunkirk in the motor, these young men and their speeches were in my mind, and I seemed to hear them speaking of their absent companion without any depression, with hardly any sorrow. They thought of him when they were successful, referred to him as a model, found an incentive in his memory,—that was all. Their grief over his loss was virile and invigorating.

After watching his friend's body through the night, the hero of d'Annunzio goes to the aërodrome where the next trials for altitude are to take place. He cannot think of robbing the dead man of his victory. As he rises into the upper regions of the air he feels a soothing influence and an increase of power: the dead man himself pilots his machine, wields the controls, and helps him higher, ever higher up in divine intoxication.

In the same way the warlike power of Guynemer's companions is not diminished. Guynemer is still with them, accompanying each one, and instilling into them the passionate longing to do more and more for France.

In seaside graveyards, the stone crosses above the empty tombs say only, after the name, "Lost at sea." I remember also seeing in the churchyards of the Vale of Chamonix similar inscriptions: "Lost on Mont-Blanc." As the mountains and the sea sometimes refuse to give up their victims, so the air seems to have kept Guynemer.

"He was neither seen nor heard as he fell," M. Henri Lavedan wrote at the beginning of October; his body and his machine were never found. Where has he gone? By what wings did he manage thus to glide into immortality? Nobody knows: nothing is known. He ascended and never came back, that is all. Perhaps our descendants will say: "He flew so high that he could not come down again."[29]

[29]L'Illustration, October 6, 1917.

I remember a strange line read in some Miscellany in my youth and never forgotten, though the rest of the poem has vanished from memory:

Un jet d'eau qui montait n'est pas redescendu.

Does this not embody the upspringing force of Guynemer's brilliant youth?

Throughout France some sort of miracle was expected: Guynemer must reappear—if a prisoner he must escape, if dead he must come to life. His father said he would go on believing even to the extreme limits of improbability. The journalist who signs his letters from the front toLe Tempswith the pseudonym d'Entraygues recalled a passage from Balzac in which some peasants at work on a haystack call to the postman on the road: "What's the news?" "Nothing, no news. Oh! I beg your pardon, people say that Napoleon has died at St. Helena." Work stops at once, and the peasants look at one another in silence. But one fellow standing on the rick says: "Napoleon dead! psha! it's plain those people don't know him!" The journalist added that he heard a speech of the same kind in the bush-region of Aveyron. A passenger on the motor-bus read in a newspaper the news of Guynemer's death; everybody seemed dismayed. The chauffeur alone smiled skeptically as he examined the spark plugs of his engine. When he had done, he pulled down the hood, put away his spectacles, carefully wiped his dirty hands on a cloth still dirtier, and planting himself in front of the passenger said: "Very well. I tell you that the man who is to down Guynemer is still an apprentice. Do you understand?..."

The credulity of the poor people of France with regard to their hero was most touching. When the death of Guynemer had to be admitted, there was deep mourning, from Paris to the remote villages where news travels slowly, but is long pondered upon. Guynemer had been brought down from a height of 700 meters, northeast of Poelkapelle cemetery, in the Ypres sector. A German noncommissioned officer and two soldiers had immediately gone to where the machine was lying. One of the wings of the machine was broken; the airman had been shot through the head, and his leg and shoulder had been broken in the fall; but his face was untouched, and he had been identified at once by the photograph on his pilot's diploma. A military funeral had been given to him.

Nevertheless, it seemed as if Guynemer's fate still remained somewhat obscure. The German War Office published a list of French machines fallen in the German lines, with the official indications by which they had been recognized. Now, the number of theVieux-Charlesdid not appear on any of these lists, although having only one wing broken the number ought to have been plainly visible. Who were the noncommissioned officer and the two soldiers? Finally, on October 4, 1917, the British took Poelkapelle, but the enemy counter-attacked, and there was furious fighting. On the 9th the village was completely occupied by the British, and they searched for Guynemer's grave. No trace of it could be found in either the military or the village graveyard.

In fact, the Germans had to acknowledge in an official document that both the body and the airplane of Guynemer had disappeared. On November 8, 1917, the German Foreign Office replied as follows to a question asked by the Spanish Ambassador:

Captain Guynemer fell in the course of an air fight on September 11 at tena.m.close to the honor graveyard No. 2 south of Poelkapelle. A surgeon found that he had been shot through the head, and that the forefinger of his left hand had been shot off by a bullet. The body could neither be buried nor removed, as the place had been since the previous day under constant and heavy fire, and during the following days it was impossible to approach it. The sector authorities communicate that the shelling had plowed up the entire district, and that no trace could be found on September 12 of either the body or the machine. Fresh inquiries, which were made in order to answer the question of the Spanish Embassy, were also fruitless, as the place where Captain Guynemer fell is now in the possession of the British.The German airmen express their regret at having been unable to render the last honors to a valiant enemy.It should be added that investigation in this case was only made with the greatest difficulty, as the enemy was constantly attacking, fresh troops were frequently brought in or relieved, and eye witnesses had either been killed or wounded, or transferred. Our troops being continually engaged have not been in a position to give the aforesaid information sooner.

The German airmen express their regret at having been unable to render the last honors to a valiant enemy.

It should be added that investigation in this case was only made with the greatest difficulty, as the enemy was constantly attacking, fresh troops were frequently brought in or relieved, and eye witnesses had either been killed or wounded, or transferred. Our troops being continually engaged have not been in a position to give the aforesaid information sooner.

So there had been no military funeral, and Guynemer had accepted nothing from his enemies, not even a wooden cross. The battle he had so often fought in the air had continued around his body; the Allied guns had kept the Germans away from it. So nobody can say where lies what was left of Guynemer: and no hand had touched him. Dead though he was, he escaped. He who was life and movement itself, could not accept the immobility of the tomb.

German applause, like that with which the Greeks welcomed the dead body of Hector, did not fail to welcome Guynemer's end. At the end of three weeks a coarse and discourteous paean was sung in theWoche. In its issue of October 6, this paper devoted to Guynemer, under the title "Most Successful French Aviator Killed," an article whose lying cowardice is enough to disgrace a newspaper, and which ought to be preserved to shame it. A reproduction of Guynemer's diploma was given with the article, which ran as follows:

Captain Guynemer enjoyed high reputation in the French army, as he professed having brought down more than fifty airplanes, but many of these were proved to have got back to their camps, though damaged it is true. The French, in order to make all verification on our side impossible, have given up stating, in the past few months, the place or date of their so-called victories. Certain French aviators, taken prisoner by our troops, have described his method thus: sometimes, when in command of his squadron, he left it to his men to attack, and when he had ascertained which of his opponents was the weakest, he attacked that one in turn. Sometimes he would fly alone at very great altitudes, for hours, above his own lines, and when he saw one of our machines separated from the others would pounce upon it unawares. If his first onset failed, he would desist at once, not liking fights of long duration, in the course of which real gallantry must be displayed.[30]

[30]Der Erfolgreichste Französische Kampfflieger Gefallen. Kapitän Guynemer genoss grossen Ruhm im französischen Heere, da er 50 Flugzeuge abgeschossen haben wollte. Von diesen ist jedoch nachgewiesenermassen eine grosse Zahl, wenn auch beschädigt, in ihre Flughäfen zurückgekert. Um deutscherseits eine Nachprüfung unmöglich zu machen, wurden in den letzten Monaten Ort und Datum seiner angeblichen Luftsiege nicht mehr angegeben. Ueber seine Kampfmethode haben gefangene französische Flieger berichtet: Entweder liess er, als Geschwaderführer fliegend, seine Kameraden zuerst angreifen un stürzle sich dann erst auf den schwächsten Gegner; oder er flog stundenlang in grössten Höhe, allein hinter der französischen Front und stürzte sich von oben herab überraschend auf einzeln fliegende deutsche Beobachtungsflugzeuge. Hatte Guynemer beim ersten Verstoss keinen Erfolg, so brach er das Gefecht sofort ab; auf den länger dauernden, wahrhaft muterprobenden Kurvenkampf liess er sich nicht gern ein.—Extract from theWocheof October 6, 1917.

This is the filth the German paper was not ashamed to print. Repulsive though it is, I must analyze some of its details. An enemy's abuse reveals his own character. So this German denied the fifty-three victories of Guynemer, all controlled, and with such severity that in his case, as in that of Dorme, he was not credited with fully a third of his distant triumphs, too far away to be officially recognized; so this German also vilified Guynemer's fighting methods, Guynemer the foolhardy, the wildly, madly foolhardy, whose machines and clothes were everlastingly riddled with bullets, who fought at such close quarters that he was constantly in danger of collisions—this Guynemer the German journalist makes out to be a prudent and timid airman, shirking fight and making use of his comrades. What sort of story had the German who brought him down told? Was it not obvious that if Guynemer had engaged him at 4000 meters, and had been killed at 700, that he must have prolonged the struggle, and prolonged it above the enemy's lines? Finally, the German journalist had the unutterable meanness and infamy to saddle on imprisoned French aviators this slander of their comrade, insinuated rather than boldly expressed. After all, this document is invaluable, and ought to be framed and preserved. How Guynemer would have laughed over it, and how youthfully ringing and honest the laugh would have sounded! Villiers de l'Isle Adam, remembering the Hegelian philosophy, once wrote: "The man who insults you only insults the idea he has formed of you, that is to say, himself."

As a whole army (the Sixth) marched on May 25 towards that hill of the Aisne valley where Guynemer had brought down four German machines, and acclaimed his triumph, so the whole French nation would take part in mourning him.

At the funeral service held at Saint Antony's Compiègne, the Bishop of Beauvais, Monseigneur Le Senne, spoke, taking for his text the Psalm in which David laments the death of Saul and his sons slainon the summits, and says that this calamity must be kept secret lest the Philistines and their daughters should rejoice over it. This service was attended by General Débeney, staff major-general, representing the generalissimo, and by all the surviving members of the Storks Escadrille, with their former chief, Major Brocard. His successor, Captain Heurtaux, whose unexpected appearance startled the congregation—he seemed so pale and thin on his crutches—had left the hospital for this ceremony, and looked so ill that people were surprised that he had the strength to stand.

A few hours before the service took place, Major Garibaldi, sent by General Anthoine, commander of the army to which Guynemer belonged, had brought to the Guynemer family the twenty-sixth citation of their hero, the famous document which all French schoolboys have since learned by heart and which was as follows:

Fallen on the field of honor on September 11, 1917. A legendary hero, fallen from the very zenith of victory after three years' hard and continuous fighting. He will be considered the most perfect embodiment of the national qualities for his indomitable energy and perseverance and his exalted gallantry. Full of invincible belief in victory, he has bequeathed to the French soldier an imperishable memory which must add to his self-sacrificing spirit and will surely give rise to the noblest emulation.

On the motion of M. Lasies, in a session which reminded us of the great days of August, 1914, the Chamber decided on October 19 that the name of Captain Guynemer should be graven on the walls of the Panthéon. Two letters, to follow below, were read by M. Lasies, to whom they had been written. One came from Lieutenant Raymond, temporary commandant of the Storks, and was as follows:

Having the honor to command Escadrille 3 in the absence of Captain Heurtaux, still wounded in hospital, I am anxious to thank you, in the name of the few surviving Storks, for what you are doing for the memory of Guynemer.He was our friend as well as our chief and teacher, our pride and our flag, and his loss will be felt more than any that has thinned our ranks so far.Please be sure that our courage has not been laid low with him; our revenge will be merciless and victorious.May Guynemer's noble soul remember us fighting our aërial battles, that we may keep alight the flame he bequeathed to us.RaymondCommanding Escadrille 3.

He was our friend as well as our chief and teacher, our pride and our flag, and his loss will be felt more than any that has thinned our ranks so far.

Please be sure that our courage has not been laid low with him; our revenge will be merciless and victorious.

May Guynemer's noble soul remember us fighting our aërial battles, that we may keep alight the flame he bequeathed to us.

RaymondCommanding Escadrille 3.

The other letter came from Major Brocard:

My dear Comrade:I am profoundly moved to hear of the thought you have had of giving the highest consecration to Guynemer's memory by a ceremony at the Panthéon.It had occurred to all of us that only the lofty dome of the Panthéon was large enough for such wings.The poor boy fell in the fullness of triumph, with his face towards the enemy. A few days before he had sworn to me that the Germans should never take him alive. His heroic death is not more glorious than that of the gunner defending his gun, the infantryman rushing out of his trench, or even that of the poor soldier perishing in the bogs. But Guynemer was known to all. There were few who had not seen him in the sky, whether blue or cloudy, bearing on his frail linen wings some of their own faith, their own dreams, and all that their souls could hold of trust and hope.It was for them all, whether infantrymen or gunners or pioneers, that he fought with the bitter hatred he felt for the invader, with his youthful daring and the joys of his triumphs. He knew that the battle would end fatally for him, no doubt, but knowing also that his war-bird was the instrument of saving thousands of lives, and seeing that his example called forth the noblest imitation, he remained true to his idea of self-sacrifice which he had formed a long time before, and which he saw develop with perfect calm.Full of modesty as a soldier, but fully conscious of the greatness of his duties, he possessed the national qualities of endurance, perseverance, indifference to danger, and to these he added a most generous heart.During his short life he had not time enough to learn bitterness, or suffering, or disillusionment.He passed straight from the school where he was learning the history of France to where he himself could add another page to it. He went to the war driven by a mysterious power which I respect as death or genius ought to be respected.He was a powerful thought living in a body so delicate that I, who lived so close beside him, knew it would some day be slain by the thought.The poor boy! Other boys from every French school wrote to him every day. He was their legendary ideal, and they felt all his emotions, sharing his joys as well as his dangers. To them he was the living copy of the heroes whose exploits they read in their books. His name is constantly on their lips, for they love him as they have been taught to love the purest glories of France.Monsieur le député, gain admittance for him to the Panthéon, where he has already been placed by the mothers and children of France. There his protecting wings will not be out of place, for under that dome where sleep those who gave us our France, they will be the symbol of those who have defended her for us.Major Brocard.

My dear Comrade:

I am profoundly moved to hear of the thought you have had of giving the highest consecration to Guynemer's memory by a ceremony at the Panthéon.

It had occurred to all of us that only the lofty dome of the Panthéon was large enough for such wings.

The poor boy fell in the fullness of triumph, with his face towards the enemy. A few days before he had sworn to me that the Germans should never take him alive. His heroic death is not more glorious than that of the gunner defending his gun, the infantryman rushing out of his trench, or even that of the poor soldier perishing in the bogs. But Guynemer was known to all. There were few who had not seen him in the sky, whether blue or cloudy, bearing on his frail linen wings some of their own faith, their own dreams, and all that their souls could hold of trust and hope.

It was for them all, whether infantrymen or gunners or pioneers, that he fought with the bitter hatred he felt for the invader, with his youthful daring and the joys of his triumphs. He knew that the battle would end fatally for him, no doubt, but knowing also that his war-bird was the instrument of saving thousands of lives, and seeing that his example called forth the noblest imitation, he remained true to his idea of self-sacrifice which he had formed a long time before, and which he saw develop with perfect calm.

Full of modesty as a soldier, but fully conscious of the greatness of his duties, he possessed the national qualities of endurance, perseverance, indifference to danger, and to these he added a most generous heart.

During his short life he had not time enough to learn bitterness, or suffering, or disillusionment.

He passed straight from the school where he was learning the history of France to where he himself could add another page to it. He went to the war driven by a mysterious power which I respect as death or genius ought to be respected.

He was a powerful thought living in a body so delicate that I, who lived so close beside him, knew it would some day be slain by the thought.

The poor boy! Other boys from every French school wrote to him every day. He was their legendary ideal, and they felt all his emotions, sharing his joys as well as his dangers. To them he was the living copy of the heroes whose exploits they read in their books. His name is constantly on their lips, for they love him as they have been taught to love the purest glories of France.

Monsieur le député, gain admittance for him to the Panthéon, where he has already been placed by the mothers and children of France. There his protecting wings will not be out of place, for under that dome where sleep those who gave us our France, they will be the symbol of those who have defended her for us.

Major Brocard.

These letters roused the enthusiasm of the Chamber, and the following resolution was passed by acclamation:

The government shall have an inscription placed in the Panthéon to perpetuate the memory of Captain Guynemer, the symbol of France's highest aspirations.

On November 5 the foregoing letters were solemnly read aloud in every school, and Guynemer was presented as an example to all French schoolboys.

The army then prepared to celebrate Guynemer as a leader, and in default of any place suitable for such a ceremony they selected the camp of Saint-Pol-sur-Mer, whence Guynemer had started on his last flight. On November 30 General Anthoine, commanding the First Army, before leaving the Flemish British sector where he had so brilliantly assisted in the success, decided to associate his men with the glorification of Guynemer.

The ceremony took place at ten in the morning. A raw breeze was blowing off the sea, whose violence the dam, raised to protect the landing-ground, was not sufficient to break. In front of the battalion which had been sent to render the military honors, waved the colors of the twenty regiments that had fought in the Flemish battles, glorious flags bearing the marks of war, some of them almost in rags. To the left, in front of the airmen, two slight figures were visible, one in black, one in horizon blue: Captain Heurtaux still on his crutches, the othersous-lieutenantFonck. The former was to be made an officer, the latter a chevalier in the Legion of Honor. Heurtaux, a fair-haired, delicate, almost girlish young man, but so phenomenally self-possessed in danger, had been, as we have said, our Roland's Oliver, his companion of old days, his rival and his confidant. Fonck, whom I called Aymerillot because of his smallness, his boyish simplicity and his daring, the hope of the morrow and already a glorious soldier, had perhaps avenged Guynemer's death already. For Lieutenant Weissman, according to theKölnische Zeitung, had boasted in a letter to his people of having brought down the most famous French aviator. "Don't be afraid on my account," he added, "I shall never meet such a dangerous enemy again." Now, on September 30 Fonck had shot this Lieutenant Weissman through the head as the latter was piloting a Rumpler machine above the French lines.

While the band was playing theMarseillaise, accompanied by the roaring of the gale and of the sea, as well as of the airplanes circling above, General Anthoine stepped out in front of the row of flags. His powerful frame seemed to suggest the cuirass of the knights of old, as, silhouetted against the cloudy sky, he towered above the two diminutive aviators near whom he was standing. The band stopped playing, and the general spoke, his voice rising and falling in the wind, and swelling to a higher pitch when the elements were too rebellious. He was speaking almost on the spot where Guynemer had departed from the soil of his own country on his final flight.

"I have not summoned you," he said, "to pay Guynemer the last homage he has a right to from the First Army, over a coffin or a grave. No trace could be found in Poelcapelle of his mortal remains, as if the heavens, jealous of their hero, had not consented to return to earth what seems to belong to it by right, and as if Guynemer had disappeared in empyrean glory through a miraculous assumption. Therefore we shall omit, on this spot from which he soared into Infinity, the sorrowful rites generally concluding the lives of mortals, and shall merely proclaim the immortality of the Knight of the Air, without fear or reproach.

"Men come and go, but France remains. All who fall for her bequeath to her their own glory, and her splendor is made up of their worth. Happy is he who enriches the commonwealth by the complete gift of himself. Happy then the child of France whose superhuman destiny we are celebrating! Glory be to him in the heavens where he reigned supreme, and glory be to him on the earth, in our soldiers' hearts and in these flags, sacred emblems of honor and of the worship of France!

"Ye flags of the second aëronautical unit and of the First Army, you keep in the mystery of your folds the memory of virtue, devotion, and sacrifice of every kind, to hand down to future generations the treasures of our national traditions!

"Flags, the souls of our heroes live in you, and when your fluttering silk is heard, it is indeed their voice bidding us go from the same dangers to the same triumphs!

"Flags, keep the soul of Guynemer forever. Let it raise up and multiply heroes in his likeness! Let it exalt to resolution the hearts of neophytes eager to avenge the martyr by imitating his lofty example, and let it give them power to revive the prowess of this legendary hero!

"For the only homage he expects from his companions is the continuation of his work.

"In the brief moment during which dying men see, as in a vision, the whole past and the whole future, if Guynemer knew a comfort it was the certainty that his comrades would successfully complete what he had begun.

"You, his friends and rivals, I know well; I know that, like Guynemer, you can be trusted, that you meet bravely the formidable task he has bequeathed to you, and that you will fulfil the hopes which France had reposed in him.

"It is to confirm this certitude in presence of our flags, brought to witness it, that I am glad to confer on two of his companions, two of our bravest fighters, distinctions which are at the same time a reward for the past and an earnest of future glory."

Then the general gave the accolade and embraced Heurtaux, now less dependent on his crutches, and Fonck, suddenly grown taller, children of glory, both of them, and still pale from the emotion caused by the evocation of their friend's glory. He pinned the badges on their coats. After this he added, in a lull of the conflicting elements:

"Let us raise our hearts in respectful and grateful admiration for the hero whom the First Army can never forget, of whom it was so proud, and whose memory will always live in History.

"Dead though he be, a man like Guynemer guides us, if we know how to follow him, along the triumphal way which, over ruins, tombs, and sacrifices, leads to victory the good and the strong."

Of itself, thanks to this religious conclusion of the general's ode, the ceremony had assumed a sort of sacred character, and the word which concludes prayers, the Amen of the officiating priest, naturally came to our lips while the general saluted with his sword the invisible spirit of the hero, and the blasts of the bugles rose above the gale and the sea.

In the Panthéon crypt, destined, as the inscription says, for the burial of great men, the name of Guynemer will be graven on a marble slab cemented in the wall. The proper inscription for this slab will be the young soldier's last citation:

FALLEN ON THE FIELD OF HONOR ON SEPTEMBER 11, 1917. A LEGENDARY HERO, FALLEN FROM THE VERY ZENITH OF VICTORY AFTER THREE YEARS' HARD AND CONTINUOUS FIGHTING. HE WILL BE CONSIDERED THE MOST PERFECT EMBODIMENT OF THE NATIONAL QUALITIES FOR HIS INDOMITABLE ENERGY AND PERSEVERANCE AND HIS EXALTED GALLANTRY. FULL OF INVINCIBLE BELIEF IN VICTORY, HE HAS BEQUEATHED TO THE FRENCH SOLDIER AN IMPERISHABLE MEMORY WHICH MUST ADD TO HIS SELF-SACRIFICING SPIRIT AND WILL SURELY GIVE RISE TO THE NOBLEST EMULATION.

"To deserve such a citation and die!" exclaimed a young officer after reading it.

In his poem,Le Vol de la Marseillaise, Rostand shows us the twelve Victories seated at the Invalides around the tomb of the Emperor rising to welcome their sister, the Victory of the Marne. At the Panthéon, in the crypt where they rest, Marshal Lannes and General Marceau, Lazare Carnot, the organizer of victory, and Captain La Tour d'Auvergne will rise in their turn on this young man's entrance. Victor Hugo, who is there too, will recognize at once one of the knights in hisLégende des Siècles, and Berthelot will look upon his coming as an evidence of the fervor of youth for France as well as for science. But of them all, Marceau, his elder brother, killed at twenty-seven, will be the most welcoming.

Traveling in the Rhine Valley some ten or twelve years ago, I made a pilgrimage to Marceau's tomb, outside Coblenz, just above the Moselle. In a little wood stands a black marble pyramid with the following inscription in worn-out gilt letters:

Here lieth Marceau, a soldier at sixteen, a general at twenty-two, who died fighting for his country the last day of the year IV of the Republic. Whoever you may be, friend or foe, respect the ashes of this hero.

The French prisoners who died in 1870-71 at the camp of Petersberg have been buried, on the same spot. Marceau was not older than these soldiers, who died without fame or glory, when his brief and wonderful career came to an end. Without knowing it, the Germans had completed the hero's mausoleum by laying these remains around it; for it is proper that beside the chief should be represented the anonymous multitude without whom there would be no chiefs.

In 1889 the remains of Marceau were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris, and the Coblenz monument now commemorates only his name. It will be the same with Guynemer, whose remains will never be found, as if the earth had refused to engulf them; they will never be brought back, amidst the acclamations of the people, to the mount once dedicated to Saint Genevieve. But his legendary life was fitly crowned by the mystery of such a death.

One of the frescoes of Puvis de Chavannes in the Panthéon, the last to the left, represents an old woman leaning over a stone terrace and gazing at the town beneath her with its moonlit roofs and its surrounding plain, looking bluish in the night. The city is asleep, but the holy woman watches and prays. She stands tall and upright as a lily. Her lamp, which is seen at the entrance of her house, is one long stem illuminated by the flame. She, too, is like this lamp. Her emaciated body would be nothing without her ardent face. Her serenity can only come from work well done and confidence in the future. Lutetia, represented in this picture by Genevieve, is not anxious; yet she listens as if she might hear once more the threatening approach of Attila. It is because she knows that the barbarians may come back again, and can only be stopped by invincible faith.

As long as France keeps her belief, she is secure. The life and death of a Guynemer are an act of faith in immortal France.

Theballadesof olden times used to conclude with anenvoiaddressed to some powerful person and invariably beginning with King, Queen, Prince or Princess. But the poet was occasionally at a loss, for, as Theodore de Banville observes in hisPetit traité de Poésie Française, "everybody has not a prince handy to whom to dedicate hisballade."

Guynemer's biography is of such a nature that it must seem like a poem: why not, then, conclude it with anenvoi? I have no difficulty in finding a Prince, for I shall select him from among the French schoolboys. There is a little Paul Bailly, not quite twelve years old, from Bouclans, a village in Franche-Comté, who wrote a beautiful theme on Guynemer: he shall be my Prince. And through him I shall address all the French schoolboys or girls, in all the French towns and villages.

Little Prince, I have no doubt that you love arithmetic, and I will give you accurate figures which will satisfy your taste. You will like to know that Guynemer flew for 665 hours and 55 seconds in all, which I added up from his flying notebooks: his last flight is not recorded in them, because it never stopped.

As for the number of fights in which he was engaged, that is difficult to ascertain. Guynemer himself did not seem anxious to be sure about it. But it must be more than 600, and might well be 700 or 800. Your Guynemer, our Guynemer, will never be surpassed: not because he forgot to hand over to his successors, rivals, and avengers the sacred flame which in France can never go out, but because genius is an exceptional privilege, and because the present methods of fighting in the air are not in favor of single combats but engage whole units.

You will also love to hear about Guynemer as an inventor, and the creator of a magic airplane. Some day this airplane will be exhibited; and perhaps some of your little friends have already seen at the Invalides the machine in which Guynemer brought down nineteen German airplanes. On November 1, 1917, thousands of Parisians visited it; and it was strewn with magnificent bunches of chrysanthemums, to which many people added clusters of violets.

In Guynemer the technician and the marksman equaled and perhaps surpassed the pilot. Captain Galliot, who is a specialist, has called him "the thinker-fighter," thereby emphasizing that his excellence as a gunner arose from meditation and preparation. The same officer adds that "accuracy was Guynemer's characteristic; he never shot at random as others occasionally do, but always took long and careful aim. Perfect weapons and perfect mastery of them were dogmas with him. His marksmanship, the result of perseverance and intelligence, multiplied tenfold the capacity of his machine-gun, and accounts for his overwhelming superiority."[31]

[31]Guerre aérienne, October 18, 1917.

But when you have realized the technical superiority of our Guynemer, you will have yet to learn one thing, one great thing, the essential thing. You have heard that Guynemer's frame was not robust; that he was delicate, and the military boards refused him several times as unfit. Yet no aviator ever showed more endurance than he did, even when developments made long cruising necessary in altitudes of 6000 or 7000 meters. There have been pilots as quickwitted and gunners as accurate as Guynemer, but there has never been anybody who equaled him in the flashlike rapidity of his attack, or for doggedness in keeping up a fight. We must conclude that he had a special gift, and this gift—his own genius—must be ultimately reduced to his decision, that is, his will-power. His will, to the very end, was far above his physical strength. There are two great dates in his short life: November 21, 1914, when he joined the army, and September 11, 1917, when he left camp for his last flight. Neither a passion for aviation nor thirst for glory had any part in his action on those two dates. Will-power in itself is sometimes dangerous, enviable though it be, and must be wisely directed. Now, Guynemer regulated his will by one great object, which was to serve, to serve his country, even unto death.

Finally, do not place Guynemer apart from his comrades: even in his grave, even in the region where there is no grave, he would resent it. I hope you will learn by heart the names of the French aces, at any rate those names which I am going to give you, whatever may become of those who bear them:[32]

[32]List made September 11, 1917.

These names will become more and more glorious—some have already done so—and others will be added to the list which you will learn also. But however tenacious your memory may be, you will never remember, nobody will ever remember, the thousands of names we ought to save from oblivion, the names of those whose patience, courage, and sufferings have saved the soil of France. The fame of one man is nothing unless it represent the obscure deeds of the anonymous multitude. The name of Guynemer ought to sum up the sacrifice of all French youth—infantrymen, gunners, pioneers, troopers, or flyers—who have given their lives for us, as we hear the infinite murmur of the ocean in one beautiful shell.

The enthusiasm and patience, the efforts and sacrifices, of the generations which came before you, little boy, were necessary to save you, to save your country, to save the world, born of light and born unto light, from the darkness of dread oppression. Germany has chosen to rob war of all that, slowly and tentatively, the nations had given to it of respect for treaties, pity for the weak and defenseless, and of honor generally. She has poisoned it as she poisons her gases. This is what we should never forget. Not only has Germany forced this war upon the world, but she has made it systematically cruel and terrifying, and in so doing she has sown the seeds of horrified rebellion against anything that is German. Parisian boys of your own age will tell you that during their sleep German squadrons used to fly over their city dropping bombs at random upon it. And to what purpose? None, beyond useless murder. This is the kind of war which Germany has waged from the first, gradually compelling her opponents to adopt the same methods. But while this loathsome work was being done, our airplanes, piloted by soldiers not much older than you, cruised like moving stars above the city of Genevieve, threatened now with unheard-of invasion from on high.

Little boy, do not forget that this war, blending all classes, has also blended in a new crucible all the capacities of our country. They are now turned against the aggressor, but they will have to be used in time for union, love, and peace.Omne regnum divisum contra se desolabitur; et omnis civitas vel domus divisa contra se non stabit.You can read this easy Latin, but if necessary your teacher or village priest will help you. The house, the city, the nation ought not to be divided. The enemy would have done us too much evil if he had not brought about the reconciliation of all Frenchmen. You, little boy, will have to wipe away the blood from the bleeding face of France, to heal her wounds, and secure for her the revival she will urgently need. She will come out of the formidable contest respected and admired, but oh, how weary! Love her with pious love, and let the life of Guynemer inspire you with the resolve to serve in daily life, as he served, even unto death.

December, 1917, toJanuary, 1918.

InHuon de Bordeaux, achanson de gestewith fairy and romantic elements, Huon leaves for Babylon on a mission confided to him by the Emperor, which he was told to fulfil with the aid of the dwarf sorcerer, Oberon. At the château of Dunôtre, in Palestine, where he must destroy a giant, he meets a young girl of great beauty named Sébile, who guides him through the palace. As he is astonished to hear her speak French, she replies: "I was born in France, and I felt pity for you because I saw the cross you wear." "In what part of France?" "In the town of Saint-Omer," replied Sébile; "I am the daughter of Count Guinemer." Her father had lately come on a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, bringing her with him. A tempest had cast them on shore near the town of the giant, who had killed her father and kept her prisoner. "For more than seven years," she added, "I have not been to mass." Naturally Huon kills the giant, and delivers the daughter of Count Guinemer.

In an article by the learned M. Longnon onL'Elément historique de Huon de Bordeaux,[33]a note is given on the name of Guinemer:

"InHuon de Bordeaux," writes M. Longnon, "the author of thePrologue des Lorrainsmakes Guinemer the son of Saint Bertin, second Abbot of Sithieu, an abbey which took the name of this blessed man and was the foundation of the city of Saint-Omer, which the poem ofHuon de Bordeauxmakes the birthplace of Count Guinemer's daughter. It is possible that this Guinemer was borrowed by ourtrouveresfrom some ancient Walloon tradition; for his name, which in Latin is Winemarus, appears to have occurred chiefly in those countries forming part, from the ninth to the twelfth century, of the County of Flanders. The chartulary of Saint Vertin alone introduces us to: 1st, a deacon named Winidmarus, who in 723 wrote a deed of sale at Saint-Omer itself (Guérard, p. 50); 2d, a knight of the County of Flanders, Winemarus, who assassinated the Archbishop of Rheims, Foulques, who was then Abbot of Saint-Bertin (Guérard, p. 135); 3d, Winemarus, a vassal of the Abbey, mentioned in an act dated 1075 (ib., p. 195); 4th, Winemarus, Lord of Gand, witness to a charter of Count Baudouin VII in 1114 (ib., p. 255). The personage inHuon de Bordeauxmight also be connected with Guimer, Lord of Saint-Omer, who appears in the beginning ofOgier le Danios, if the form, Guimer, did not seem rather to derive from Withmarus."[34]

Back to Index Next