Hardly any of his portraits are like him. Does the fact that he was tall
and spare, almost beardless, with an amber-colored, oval face and a
regular profile, and raven-hair brushed backwards, give any idea of the
force that was in him? If his eyes, dark with golden reflections, could
have been painted, they might no doubt have given a more accurate notion
of him: his capacity for surveying all space, and his prompt decision,
were visible in them, as well as his carefulness and his courage. Their
glance was so direct, almost brutal, that it could be felt, so to speak,
physically; and yet it could suddenly express a cheerful, boyish nature,
or disclose his close attention to the technical problems which
everlastingly engrossed his mind.
Guynemer was very different from Navarre, with his powerful profile and
broad chest like an eagle in repose, and different from Nungesser, the
Nungesser before his wounds had so devastated his body that a medical
board wanted to declare him unfit, a decision which he heroically
resisted, adding to his thirty victories another triumph over physical
disability.
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