orable mention at Tarbes for good work in the
general course, consisting of geography, history, Latin, and theology.

At twelve he began to show a decided bent for mathematics, that _sine
qua non_ of the successful soldier. He had also developed into a great
reader, but preferred history to works of fiction. One of his chief
military heroes was, quite naturally, Napoleon, and he must have taken
part in imagination with the charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo, or
thrilled at the tale of Austerlitz. But never in the wildest flights
of his imagination could he have dreamed of commanding a far greater
army than was ever assembled under the eagles of Napoleon.

In 1867, at the age of sixteen, another change came in his schooling.
His father was stationed at St. Etienne near Lyons, and Ferdinand was
entered at St. Michel, a Jesuit college near by. Here he studied for
his university examinations, and made his choice of a life
profession--and it is not strange to note that he decided to be a
soldier. The choice made, his future studies, as is the way in French
colleges, were planned to follow specialized lines. It was not alone
necessary to choose the army, for example,--one must select a certain
branch of the army. Foch's aptitude at mathematics led him to take up
the artillery.

The principal school of this branch of the service was the Ecole
Polytechnique, at Paris, but a stiff entrance examination was required
here. So Foch decided to do preliminary work at St. Clement's College,
Metz, a training school with a high reputation.

In those days the city and fortress of Metz were on French soil. This
was just before the short but memorable Franco-Prussian War, but
already the air was rife with rumors of an impending conflict. The
French, however, were undisturbed. They thought, and expressed the
open opinion that it would be fought out on the other side of the
Rhine, and that the peace terms would be dictated in Berlin.

Metz! How much history does the name suggest in the light of the Great
War! If the young artillery student could have foreseen the backward
and forward swing of the pendulum, as exemplified in that ancient city,
how his blood would have quickened!

The summer of 1870 arrived. Ferdinand Foch, a well-grown lad of
nineteen, went home to St. Etienne on his first vacation. It had been
his first year away from home, and there must have been a joyful
reunion. But over the vacation season hung a w