His complete freedom from conceit has often been remarked.  At a luncheon given in his honor by the well-known deputy, Captain Lasies, he would not say a word about himself, but extolled his comrades until somebody said:  “You are really modesty itself.”

Whereupon another guest asked:  “Could you imagine him bragging?”

Guynemer was delighted, and when the party broke up he went out with the gentleman who had said this and thanked him warmly.  “Don’t you see how little they understand?  I don’t say I am modest, but if I weren’t I would be a fool, and I should not like to be that.  I know quite well that just now some of us are getting so much admiration and so many honors that one may get more than one’s share.  Whereas the men in the trenches—­how different it is with them!"[24]

[Footnote 24:  Journal des Debats for September 26, 1917.]

But it was inevitable that he should be lionized.  People came to him with albums and pictures.  He wrote to his father that a Madame de B. wanted something, just one sentence, in an album which was to be sold in America.  “I am to be alongside the Generalissimo.  What on earth can I write?”

An American lady who was also a guest at the Hotel Edouard VII wanted to have at any price some souvenir of the young hero.  She ordered her maid to bring away an old glove of Guynemer’s which was lying on a chest of drawers, and replace it by a magnificent bouquet.  “This lady put me in a nice dilemma,” Guynemer explained, “as it was Sunday and there was no way of getting any more gloves."[25]

[Footnote 25:  Anecdote related in the Figaro for September 29, 1917.]

He had no affectation, least of all the kind that pretends to be ignorant of one’s own popularity; but surely he cared little for popularity.  Here again he puts us in mind of a medieval poem.  In Gilbert de Metz, one of our oldest epics, the daughter of Anseis is described seated at the window, “fresh, slim, and white as a lily” when two knights, Garin and his cousin Gilbert, happen to ride near.  “Look up, cousin Gilbert,” says Garin, “look.  By our lady, what a handsome dame!” “Oh,” answers Gilbert, “what a handsome creature my steed is!  I never saw anything so lovely as this maiden with her fair skin and dark eyes.  I never knew any steed that could compare with mine.”  And so on, while Gilbert still refuses to look up at the beautiful daughter of Anseis.  Also in Girard de Viane, Charlemagne, holding his court at the palace of Vienne, has just placed the hand of the lovely Aude in that of his nephew Roland.  Both the girl and the great soldier are silent and blushing while the date of the wedding is being discussed, when a messenger suddenly rushes in:  “The Saracens are in France!  War! war!” shout the bystanders.  Then without a word Roland drops the white hand of the girl, springs to arms, and is gone.  So Guynemer would have praised his Nieuport or his Spad as Gilbert praised his steed, and belle Aude herself could not have kept him away from the fight.