Part 12 (1/2)

Guynemer was delighted, and when the party broke up he went out with the gentleman who had said this and thanked him warmly. ”Don't you see how little they understand? I don't say I am modest, but if I weren't I would be a fool, and I should not like to be that. I know quite well that just now some of us are getting so much admiration and so many honors that one may get more than one's share. Whereas the men in the trenches--how different it is with them!”[24]

[Footnote 24: _Journal des Debats_ for September 26, 1917.]

But it was inevitable that he should be lionized. People came to him with alb.u.ms and pictures. He wrote to his father that a Madame de B.

wanted something, just one sentence, in an alb.u.m which was to be sold in America. ”I am to be alongside the Generalissimo. What on earth can I write?”

An American lady who was also a guest at the Hotel Edouard VII wanted to have at any price some souvenir of the young hero. She ordered her maid to bring away an old glove of Guynemer's which was lying on a chest of drawers, and replace it by a magnificent bouquet. ”This lady put me in a nice dilemma,” Guynemer explained, ”as it was Sunday and there was no way of getting any more gloves.”[25]

[Footnote 25: Anecdote related in the _Figaro_ for September 29, 1917.]

He had no affectation, least of all the kind that pretends to be ignorant of one's own popularity; but surely he cared little for popularity. Here again he puts us in mind of a medieval poem. In _Gilbert de Metz_, one of our oldest epics, the daughter of Anseis is described seated at the window, ”fresh, slim, and white as a lily” when two knights, Garin and his cousin Gilbert, happen to ride near. ”Look up, cousin Gilbert,” says Garin, ”look. By our lady, what a handsome dame!” ”Oh,” answers Gilbert, ”what a handsome creature my steed is! I never saw anything so lovely as this maiden with her fair skin and dark eyes. I never knew any steed that could compare with mine.” And so on, while Gilbert still refuses to look up at the beautiful daughter of Anseis. Also in _Girard de Viane_, Charlemagne, holding his court at the palace of Vienne, has just placed the hand of the lovely Aude in that of his nephew Roland. Both the girl and the great soldier are silent and blus.h.i.+ng while the date of the wedding is being discussed, when a messenger suddenly rushes in: ”The Saracens are in France! War!

war!” shout the bystanders. Then without a word Roland drops the white hand of the girl, springs to arms, and is gone. So Guynemer would have praised his Nieuport or his Spad as Gilbert praised his steed, and _belle Aude_ herself could not have kept him away from the fight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COMBAT]

One day his father felt doubts about the capacity of such a young man to resist the intoxication of so much flattery from men and women.

”Don't worry,” Guynemer answered, ”I am watching my nerves as an acrobat watches his muscles. I have chosen my own mission, and I must fulfil it.”

After his death, one of his friends, the one who spoke to him last, told me: ”He used to put aside heaps of flattering letters which he did not even read. 'Read them if you like,' he said to me, and I destroyed them.

He only read letters from children, schoolboys and soldiers.”

In _L'Aiglon_ Prokesch brings the mail to the Prince Imperial, and handing him letters from women, he says:

Voila Ce que c'est d'avoir l'aureole fatale.

As soon as Prokesch begins to read them, the Prince stops him with the words: ”_Je dechire_.” Even when a woman whom he has nicknamed ”Little Spring”--”because the water sleeping in her eyes or purling in her voice has often cooled his fever”--announces her departure, hoping he may detain her, he lets her go, whispering again like a refrain, ”_Je dechire_.”

Did Guynemer deal with hearts as he dealt with the besieging letters, or as the falcon of St. Jean l'Hospitalier dealt with birds?--No ”Little Spring,” had her voice been ever so rill-like, could have detained him when a sunny morning invited him skywards.

Safe from the admiring public, Guynemer would relax and breathe freely with his people at Compiegne, where he became once more a lively, noisy, indulged, but coaxing and charming boy, except when absorbed in work, from which nothing could distract him. He spent hours in pasting and cla.s.sifying the snapshots he took of his enemies just before pulling the trigger of his machine-gun and bringing them down. One of his greatest pleasures when on leave was to arrange and show these photographs.

His eyes, which saw everything, were keen to detect the least changes in the arrangement of his home, even when mere knickknacks had been moved about. At each visit he found the house ornamented with some new trophy of his exploits. He was delighted to find that a miniature barkentine, which he had built with corks, paper, and thread when he was seven years old, still stood on his mother's mantelpiece. Even at that age his powers of observation had been evident, and he had forgotten no detail of sails or rigging.

He had taken again so naturally his old place in the family circle that his mother forgot once and called the tall, famous young man by his old familiar name, ”_Bebe_.” She quickly corrected herself, but he said:

”I am always that to you, Mother.”

”I was happier when you were little,” she observed.

”I hope you are not vexed with me, Mother.”

”Vexed for what?”

”For having grown up.”

He was naturally full of the one subject that interested him, airplanes and chasing, and he would go round the house collecting audiences.

Strange bits of narration could be overheard from different rooms as he held forth: