Thus the immoderate Guynemer had for his first friend a comrade who knew
exactly his own limits. Guynemer could save Jean Krebs from his excess
of literal honesty by showing him the enchantment of his own ecstasies,
but Jean Krebs furnished the motor for Guynemer's ambitious young wings.
Without the technical lessons of Jean Krebs, could Guynemer later have
got into the aviation field at Pau, and won so easily his diploma as
pilot? Would he have applied himself so closely to the study of his
tools and the perfecting of his machine?

The war was to make them both aviators, and both of them fell from the
sky, one in the fullness of glory, the other almost obscure. When they
talked together on school outings, or as they walked along beside the
walls of Stanislas, had they ever foreseen this destiny? Certainly not
Jean Krebs, with his positive spirit; he only saw ahead the École
polytechnique, and thought of nothing but preparation for that. But
Guynemer? In his very precious notes, Abbé Chesnais shows us the boy
constructing a little airplane of cloth, the motor of which was a bundle
of elastics. "At the next recreation hour, he went up to the dormitory,
opened a window, launched his machine, and presided over its evolutions
above the heads of his comrades." But these were only the games of an
ingenious collegian. The worthy priest, who was division prefect, and
watched the boy with a profound knowledge of psychology, never received
any confidence from him regarding his vocation.

Aviation, whose first timid essays began in 1906, progressed rapidly.
After Santos Dumont, who on November 22, 1906, covered 220 meters while
volplaning, a group of inventors--Blériot, Delagrange, Farman,
Wright--perfected light motors. In 1909 Blériot crossed the Channel,
Paulhan won the height record at 1380 meters, and Farman the distance
record over a course of 232 kilometers. A visionary, Viscomte Melchior