[Footnote 6:  There are still Guynemers there.  M. Etienne Dupont, Judge in the Civil Court of Saint-Malo, sent me an extract from an aveu collectif of the “Leftenancy of Tinteniac de Guinemer des Rabines.”  The Guynemers, in more recent times, have left traces in the county of Saint-Malo, where Mgr.  Guynemer de la Helandiere inaugurated, in September, 1869, the Tour Saint-Joseph, house of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Saint-Pern.]

Here, thanks to an unusual circumstance, oral tradition takes the place of writings, charters, and puzzling trifles.  One of the four sons of Bernard Guynemer, Auguste, lived to be ninety-three, retaining all his faculties.  Toward the end he resembled Voltaire, not only in face, but in his irony and skepticism.  He had all sorts of memories of the Revolution, the Empire, and the Restoration, of which he told extraordinary anecdotes.  His longevity was owing to his having been discharged from military service at the conscription.  Two of his three brothers died before maturity:  one, Alphonse, infantry officer, was killed at Vilna in 1812, and the other, Jules, naval officer, died in 1802 as the result of wounds received at Trafalgar.  The last son, Achille, whom we shall presently refer to again, was to perpetuate the family name.

Auguste Guynemer remembered very vividly the day when he faced down Robespierre.  He was at that time eight years old, and the mistress of his school had been arrested.  He came to the school as usual and found there were no classes.  Where was his teacher? he asked.  At the Revolutionary Tribunal.  Where was the Revolutionary Tribunal?  Jestingly they told him where to find it, and he went straight to the place, entered, and asked back the captive.  The audience looked at the little boy with amazement, while the judges joked and laughed at him.  But without being discomposed, he explained the purpose of his visit.  The incident put Robespierre in good humor, and he told the child that his teacher had not taught him anything.  Immediately, as a proof of the contrary, the youngster began to recite his lessons.  Robespierre was so delighted that, in the midst of general laughter, he lifted up the boy and kissed him.  The prisoner was restored to him, and the school reopened.

However, of the four sons of the President of Mayence, the youngest only, Achille, was destined to preserve the family line.  Born in 1792, a volunteer soldier at the age of fifteen, his military career was interrupted by the fall of the Empire.  He died in Paris, in the rue Rossini, in 1866.  Edmond About, who had known his son at Saverne, wrote the following biographical notice: