Georges Guynemer | Page 7

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