Both the girl and the great soldier are
silent and blushing while the date of the wedding is being discussed,
when a messenger suddenly rushes in: "The Saracens are in France! War!
war!" shout the bystanders. Then without a word Roland drops the white
hand of the girl, springs to arms, and is gone. So Guynemer would have
praised his Nieuport or his Spad as Gilbert praised his steed, and
_belle Aude_ herself could not have kept him away from the fight.
[Illustration: COMBAT]
One day his father felt doubts about the capacity of such a young man to
resist the intoxication of so much flattery from men and women.
"Don't worry," Guynemer answered, "I am watching my nerves as an acrobat
watches his muscles. I have chosen my own mission, and I must fulfil
it."
After his death, one of his friends, the one who spoke to him last, told
me: "He used to put aside heaps of flattering letters which he did not
even read. 'Read them if you like,' he said to me, and I destroyed them.
He only read letters from children, schoolboys and soldiers."
In _L'Aiglon_ Prokesch brings the mail to the Prince Imperial, and
handing him letters from women, he says:
Voila
Ce que c'est d'avoir l'aureole fatale.
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