Before receiving
from our chiefs the suggestion, of which we learn to-day, we had
already, on the 22nd of October, consecrated a day to the memory of
our hero Guynemer, your glorious son.
I send you enclosed an exercise by one of my pupils chosen at
random, for all of them are animated by the same sentiments. You
will see how the immortal glory of your son shines even in humble
villages, and that the admiration and gratitude which the children,
so far away in the country, feel for our greatest aviator, will be
piously and faithfully preserved in his memory.
May this sincere testimony to the sentiments of childhood be of
some comfort in your grief, to which I offer my most profound
respect.
The School-mistress of Bouclans,
C.S.
And this is the exercise, written by Paul Bailly, aged eleven years and
ten months:
Guynemer is the Roland of our epoch: like Roland he was very brave,
and like Roland he died for France. But his exploits are not a
legend like those of Roland, and in telling them just as they
happened we find them more beautiful than any we could imagine.
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