[Footnote 28:  La Croix, October 7, 1917, article by Pierre l’Ermite.]

“My fate is sealed,” he once said in his playful, authoritative way; “I cannot escape it.”  And remembering his not very far away Latin, he added:  “Hodie mihi, cras tibi....”

* * * * *

Early in September he made up his mind to go back to Flanders, although his airplane was not yet entirely repaired.  The day before leaving he was standing at the door of the Hotel Edouard VII when one of his schoolmates at the College Stanislas, Lieutenant Jacquemin, appeared.  “He took me to his room,” this officer relates, “and we talked for more than an hour about schooldays.  I asked him whether he had some special dodge to be so successful.”  “None whatever,” he said, “but you remember I took a prize for shooting at Stanislas.  I shoot straight, and have absolute confidence in my machine.”  He showed me his numberless decorations, and was just as simple and full of good fellowship as he was at Stanislas.  It was evident that his head had not been in the least turned by his success; he only talked more and enjoyed describing his fights.  He told me, too, that in spite of opposition from airplane builders he had secured a long-contemplated improvement; and that he had had a special camera made for him with which he could photograph a machine as it fell.  His parting words were:  “I hope to fly to-morrow, but don’t expect to see my name any more in the communiques.  That’s all over:  I have bagged my fifty Boches.”

Were not these strange words, if indeed Guynemer attached any meaning to them?  At all events, they expressed his innermost longing, which was to go on flying, even if he should fly for nothing.

* * * * *

Before reporting at Dunkirk, Guynemer spent September 2, 3, and 4 with his people at Compiegne.  Never was he more fascinatingly affectionate, boyish, and bright than during those three days.  But he seemed agitated.  “Let us make plans,” he said repeatedly, in spite of his old aversion to castle-building.  His plans that day were for the amusement of his sisters.  He reminded the younger, Yvonne, that he had quarreled once with her.  It was at Biarritz, when he wanted her to make a novena (nine days’ special prayers) that he might not be rejected by the recruiting board again; his sister did not like to promise, and he had threatened to sulk forever, which he had proceeded to do—­for five minutes.

His mother and sisters thought him more enchanting than ever, but his father felt that he was overstrained, and realized that his almost morbid notion of his duty as a chaser who could no longer wait for his chance but wanted to force a victory, was the result of fatigue.  M. Guynemer no longer hesitated to speak, adding that the period of rest he advised was in the very interest of his son’s service.  “You need strengthening; you have done too much.  If you should go on, you would be in great danger of falling below yourself, or not really being yourself.”