oland 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 Pantheon
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 Tu