And there were no limits to the exercise of this energy.  He gave his own body to complete so to speak, the airplane,—­a centaur of the air.  The wind that whistled through his tension wires and canvas made his own body vibrate like the piano wires.  His body was so sensitive that it, too, seemed to obey the rudder.  Nothing that concerned his voyages was either unknown or negligible to him.  He verified all his instruments—­the map-holder, the compass, the altimeter, the tachometer, the speedometer—­with searching care.  Before every flight he himself made sure that his machine was in perfect condition.  When it was brought out of the hangar he looked it over as they look over race-horses, and never forgot this task.  How would it be when he should have his own airplane?

At Pau he increased the number of his flights, and changed airplanes, leaving the Bleriot Gnome for the Morane.  His altitudes at this time varied from 500 to 600 meters.  Going, on March 21, to the Avord school, he went up on the 28th to a height of 1500 meters, and on April 1 to 2600.  His flights became longer, and lasted one hour, then an hour and a half.  The spiral descent from a height of 500 meters, with the motor switched off, triangular voyages, the test of altitude and that of duration of flight, which were necessary for his military diploma, soon became nothing more to him than sport.  In May nearly every day he piloted one passenger on an M.S.P. (Morane-Saunier-Parasol).  During all this period his record-book registers only one breakdown.  Finally, on May 25, he was sent to the general Aviation Reserves, and on the 31st made two flights in a Nieuport with a passenger.  This was the end of his apprenticeship, and on June 8 Corporal Georges Guynemer was designated as member of Escadrille M.S.3, which he joined next day at Vauciennes.

This M.S.3 was the future N.3, the “Ciogognes” or Storks Escadrille.  It was already commanded by Captain Brocard, under whose orders it was destined to become illustrious.  Vedrines belonged to it. Sous-lieutenant de cavalerie Deullin joined it almost simultaneously with Guynemer, whose friend he soon became.  Later, little by little, came Heurtaux, de la Tour, Dorme, Auger, Raymond, etc., all the famous valiant knights of the escadrille, like the peers of France who followed Roland over the Spanish roads.  This aviation camp was at Vauciennes, near Villers-Cotterets, in the Valois country with its beautiful forests, its chateaux, its fertile meadows, and its delicate outlines made shadowy by the humid vapor rising from ponds or woods.  “Complete calm,” wrote Guynemer on June 9, “not one sound of any kind; one might think oneself in the Midi, except that the inhabitants have seen the beast at close range, and know how to appreciate us....  Vedrines is very friendly and has given me excellent advice.  He has recommended me to his ‘mecanos,’ who are the real type of the clever Parisian, inventive,