mechanician. He had entered the army by the back door, but he had got
in. The future knight of the air was now the humblest of grooms. "I do
not ask any favors for him," his father wrote to the captain. "All I ask
is that he may perform any services he is capable of." He had to be
tried and proved deserving, to pass through all the minor ranks before
being worthy to wear the _casque sacré_. The petted child of Compiègne
and the Villa Delphine had the most severe of apprenticeships. He slept
on the floor, and was employed in the dirtiest work about camp, cleaned
cylinders and carried cans of petroleum. In this _milieu_ he heard words
and theories which dumbfounded him, not knowing then that men frequently
do not mean all that they say. On November 26, he wrote Abbé Chesnais:
"I have the pleasure of informing you that after two postponements
during a vain effort to enlist, I have at last succeeded. _Time and
patience_ ... I am writing you in the mess, while two comrades are
elaborating social theories...."

Would he be able to endure this workman's existence? His parents were
not without anxiety. They hesitated to leave Biarritz and return to
their home in Compiègne in the rue Saint-Lazare, on the edge of the
forest. But, so far from being injured by manual labor, the child
constantly grew stronger. In his case spirit had always triumphed over
matter, and compelled it to obedience on every occasion. So now he
followed his own object with indomitable energy. He took an airplane to
pieces before mounting in it, and learned to know it in every detail.

His preparation for the École Polytechnique assured him a brilliant
superiority in his present surroundings. He could explain the laws of
mechanics, and tell his wonderstruck comrades what is meant by the
resultant of several forces and the equilibrium of forces, giving them
unexpected notions about kinematics and dynamics.[13] From the