But his next airplane was also armed, and in the young pilot could already be plainly seen that taste for enemy-chasing which was to bewitch and take possession of him.  Though after this time he certainly carried over the lines Lieutenant de Lavalette, Lieutenant Colcomb and Captain Simeon, and always with equal calm, yet he aspired to other flights, further away from earth.  Lieutenant de Beauchamp—­the future Captain de Beauchamp, who was to die so soon after his audacious raids on Essen and Munich—­divined what was hidden in this thin boy who was in such breathless haste to get on.  He would not allow Corporal Guynemer to address him as lieutenant, feeling so surely his equality, and to-morrow perhaps his mastery.  On July 6, 1915, he sent him a little guide for aviators in a few lines:  “Be cautious.  Look well at what is happening around you before acting.  Invoke Saint Benoit every morning.  But above all, write in letters of fire in your memory:  In aviation, everything not useful should be avoided.” Oh, of course!  The “little girl” laughed at the advice as he laughed at the tempest.  He had an admiration for Beauchamp, but when did a Roland ever listen to an Oliver?  One day he went up in a wind of over 25 meters, and even by nosing-up a bit he could hardly make any progress.  With the wind behind him he made over 200 kilometers.  Then he landed.  Vedrines addressed a few warning remarks to him, and he was thought to be calmed.  But off he went again before the frightened spectators.  He would always do too much, and nothing could restrain him.

The importance of the development of aviation in the war had been foreseen neither by the Germans nor ourselves.  If before the beginning of the campaign the military chiefs had understood all the services which would be rendered by aerial strategic scouting, the regulation of artillery fire would not have still been in an experimental stage.  No one knew the help which was to be derived from aerial photography.  The air duel was regarded simply as a possible incident that might occur during a patrol or a reconnaissance, and in view of which the observer or mechanician armed himself with a gun or an automatic pistol.  Airplanes armed with machine-guns were very exceptional, and at the end of 1914 there were only thirty.  The Germans used them generally before we did; but it was the French aviators, nevertheless, who forced the Germans to fight in the air.  I had the opportunity in October, 1914, to see, from a hill on the Aisne, one of these first airplane combats, which ended by the enemy falling on the outskirts of the village of Muizon on the left bank of the Vesle.  The French champion bore the fine name of Franc, and piloted a Voisin.  At that date it was not unusual to pick up messages dropped within our lines by enemy pilots, substantially to this effect:  “Useless for us to fight each other; there are enough risks without that....”