with his
father, who already gave him much attention, brought about useful
reactions. Compiegne 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 Compiegne, and there magnificent fetes 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'Hotel 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
Compiegne. 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 Debats_, 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 _Debats_ article, who is a scholar, recalls Michelet's
_mot_: "The Frenchman is that naughty child characterized by the good
mother of Duguesclin as 'the one who is always fighting the others....'"
But the best portrait of Guynemer as a child I find in the unpublished
notes of Abbe Chesnais, who was division prefe