Published on the Fund given to the Yale University Press in memory of ENSIGN CURTIS SEAMAN READ, U.S.N.R.F. of the Class of 1918, Yale College, killed in the aviation service in France, February, 1918 Georges Georges Guynemer, Knight of the Air...

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH By LOUISE MORGAN SILL WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT NEW HAVEN YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK: 280 MADISON AVENUE MDCCCCXVIII COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS Introduction Prologue Envoi Appendix: Genealogy of Georges Guynemer...

June 27th, 1918. My dear M. Bordeaux : I count the American people fortunate in reading any book of yours; I count them fortunate in reading any biography of that great hero of the air, Guynemer; and thrice over I count them fortunate to have such a book written by you on such a subject. You, sir, have for many years been writing books peculiarly fitted to instill into your countrymen the qualities which during the last forty-eight months have made France the wonder of the world. You have writte

In his book on Chivalry, the good Léon Gautier, beginning with the knight in his cradle and wishing to surround him immediately with a supernatural atmosphere, interprets in his own fashion the sleeping baby smiling at the angels. "According to a curious legend, the origin of which has not as yet been clearly discovered," he explains, "the child during its slumber hears 'music,' the incomparable music made by the movement of the stars in their spheres. Yes, that which the most illustrious schola

The apprentice pilot, then, left the ground for the first time at the Pau school on February 17, 1915, in a three-cylinder Blériot. But these were only short leaps, though sufficiently audacious ones. His monitor accused him of breakneck recklessness: "Too much confidence, madness, fantastical humor." That same evening he wrote describing his impressions to his father: "Before departure, a bit worried; in the air, wildly amusing. When the machine slid or oscillated I was not at all troubled, it

The destiny of a Guynemer is to surpass himself. Part of his power, however, must lie in the perfection of his weapons. Why could he not forge them himself? In him, the mechanician and the gunsmith were impatient to serve the pilot and the fighter. Nothing in the science of aviation was unknown to him, and Guynemer in the factory was always the same Guynemer. He worked with the same nervous tension when he overhauled his machine-guns to avoid the too frequent and too troublesome jamming, or when

After the battle on the Aisne Georges Guynemer was ordered to Flanders, but he had to take to his bed as soon as he arrived (July, 1917) and only left the hospital on the 20th. He then repaired to the new aviation camp outside Dunkirk, which at that time consisted of a few rows of tents near the seaside. He was to take part in the contemplated offensive, on his own magic airplane—which he brought from Fismes on the 23d—for the Storks Escadrille had been incorporated into a fighting unit under Ma

The ballades of olden times used to conclude with an envoi addressed to some powerful person and invariably beginning with King, Queen, Prince or Princess. But the poet was occasionally at a loss, for, as Theodore de Banville observes in his Petit traité de Poésie Française , "everybody has not a prince handy to whom to dedicate his ballade ." Guynemer's biography is of such a nature that it must seem like a poem: why not, then, conclude it with an envoi ? I have no difficulty in finding a Princ

In Huon de Bordeaux , a chanson de geste with fairy and romantic elements, Huon leaves for Babylon on a mission confided to him by the Emperor, which he was told to fulfil with the aid of the dwarf sorcerer, Oberon. At the château of Dunôtre, in Palestine, where he must destroy a giant, he meets a young girl of great beauty named Sébile, who guides him through the palace. As he is astonished to hear her speak French, she replies: "I was born in France, and I felt pity for you because I saw the c