hen, and always, the faces of three
women, his mother and his two elder sisters, standing guard over his
happiness. His father, an officer (Junior Class '80, Saint-Cyr), had
resigned in 1890. An ardent scholar, he became a member of the
Historical Society of Compiegne, and while examining the charters of the
_Cartulaire de royallieu_, or writing a monograph on the _Seigneurie
d'Offemont_, he verified family documents of the genealogy of his
family. Above all, it was he in reality who educated his son.

Guynemer is a very old French name. In the _Chanson de Roland_ one
Guinemer, uncle of Ganelon, helped Roland to mount at his departure. A
Guinemer appears in _Gaydon_ (the knight of the jay), which describes
the sorrowful return of Charlemagne to Aix-la-Chapelle after the drama
of Roncevaux; and a Guillemer figures in _Fier-a-Bras_, in which
Charlemagne and the twelve peers conquer Spain. This Guillemer l'Escot
is made prisoner along with Oliver, Berart de Montdidier, Auberi de
Bourgoyne, and Geoffroy l'Angevin.

In the eleventh century the family of Guynemer left Flanders for
Brittany. When the French Revolution began, there were still Guynemers
in Brittany,[6] but the greatgrandfather of our hero, Bernard, was
living in Paris in reduced circumstances, giving lessons in law. Under
the Empire he was later to be appointed President of the Tribunal at
Mayence, the chief town in the country of Mont Tonnerre. Falling into
disfavor after 1815, he was only President of the Tribunal of Gannat.

[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 servi