"
The author of the _Debats_ article, who is a scholar, recalls Michelet's
_mot_: "The Frenchman is that naughty child characterized by the good
mother of Duguesclin as 'the one who is always fighting the others....'"
But the best portrait of Guynemer as a child I find in the unpublished
notes of Abbe Chesnais, who was division prefect at Stanislas College
during the four years which Guynemer passed there. The Abbe Chesnais had
divined this impassioned nature, and watched it with troubled sympathy.
"His eyes vividly expressed the headstrong, fighting nature of the boy,"
he says of his pupil. "He did not care for quiet games, but was devoted
to those requiring skill, agility, and force. He had a decided
preference for a game highly popular among the younger classes--_la
petite guerre_. The class was divided into two armies, each commanded by
a general chosen by the pupils themselves, and having officers of all
ranks under his orders. Each soldier wore on his left arm a movable
brassard. The object of the battle was the capture of the flag, which
was set up on a wall, a tree, a column, or any place dominating the
courtyard.
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