Stat sua cuique dies; breve et irreparabile tempus
     Omnibus est vitae; sed famam extendere factis,
     Hoc virtutis opus. . .

“The days of man are numbered, and his life-time short and irrecoverable; but to increase his renown by the quality of his acts, this is the work of virtue...."[1]

[Footnote 1:  AEneid, Book 10, Garnier ed.]

Famam extendere factis:  no fabulous personage of antiquity made more haste than Guynemer to multiply the exploits that increased his glory.  But the enumeration of these would not furnish a key to his life, nor explain either that secret power he possessed or the fascination he exerted.  “It is not always the most brilliant actions which best expose the virtues or vices of men.  Some trifle, some insignificant word or jest, often displays the character better than bloody combats, pitched battles, or the taking of cities.  Also, as portrait painters try to reproduce the features and expression of their subjects, as the most obvious presentment of their characters, and without troubling about the other parts of the body, so we may be allowed to concentrate our study upon the distinctive signs of the soul...."[2]

[Footnote 2:  Plutarch, Life of Alexander.]

I, then, shall especially seek out these “distinctive signs of the soul.”

Guynemer’s family has confided to me his letters, his notebooks of flights, and many precious stories of his childhood, his youth, and his victories.  I have seen him in camps, like the Cid Campeador, who made “the swarm of singing victories fly, with wings outspread, above his tents.”  I have had the good fortune to see him bring down an enemy airplane, which fell in flames on the bank of the river Vesle.  I have met him in his father’s house at Compiegne, which was his Bivar.  Almost immediately after his disappearance I passed two night-watches—­as if we sat beside his body—­with his comrades, talking of nothing but him:  troubled night-watches in which we had to change our shelter, for Dunkirk and the aviation field were bombarded by moonlight.  In this way I was enabled to gather much scattered evidence, which will help, perhaps, to make clear his career.  But I fear—­and offer my excuses for this—­to disappoint professional members of the aviation corps, who will find neither technical details nor the competence of the specialist.  One of his comrades of the air,—­and I hope it may be one of his rivals in glory,—­should give us an account of Guynemer in action.  The biography which I have attempted to write seeks the soul for its object rather than the motor:  and the soul, too, has its wings.