GUYNEMER, THE WINGÈD SWORD OF FRANCE A Tribute, by Premier Georges Clemenceau

Translated from the French

SIX

“How difficult it is to find a little black point through a rift in the clouds, which, found again soon afterwards in the field of blue, is about to wrap itself in a mist of white smoke, and seems to be celebrating in its own honor, but is only Death’s messenger. That is Guynemer, far up there, or some other of ‘The Storks’ under attack by German shrapnel. This war, beyond the range of vision, in the tragic infinity of space, watched by all the world!

“He who was able to place himself in the first rank of that band of messengers from the earth to the heights, in response to the wingèd beings that the heavens sent us long ago, fully merits to live among us as a symbol of one of the greatest efforts of the human will.

“There, all alone, in the very highest, in the imperturbable calm of absolute self-possession, waiting for nothing but a succession of unerring motions gauged by correctness of eyesight and promptness of bold decisions, on the edge of a bottomless abyss ready to swallow everything, without the supreme aid of a look or the hand of a friend—is that not something far above all the historic beauty of the greatest sacrifices for the noblest causes—something as it were of a miraculous concentration of superhumanity? To face every day the sublime adventure, in the sun, in the wind, in the rain, to pursue the enemy and seize upon the decisive moment that will place him at the mercy of the cannonading, beneath the fugitive angle which is offered suddenly, and will never occur again, to begin, and begin again, every day, and to always come back victorious. Thus lived Guynemer, now borne away in a great apotheosis, amid the acclamations of his companions in glory.

“Guynemer, born to civil life like so many of his companions, when William II of Germany decided that the hour had come for France to demonstrate what she had preserved of that nobility of blood in which her history had been moulded—Guynemer, without a word, resolved to lift his France to the highest! And upon that day when his destiny was achieved, all of us bear witness that he acted upon his resolution.

“One day, it was granted me to clasp that hand in which not a quiver revealed the control of the supreme power of nerves and courage. Eyes of lovable youth! A gentle smile of timidity! Simple, quiet replies, gestures disguising the consciousness of great hours incessantly lived over! In the greatest heart lies the purest simplicity.”

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 6, No. 18. SERIAL No. 166 COPYRIGHT, 1918. BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.