Georges Guynemer | Page 6

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