"

"That is possible. But you're appointed all the same, and I know you
will do excellent work in the position."

Foch thanked the Premier, but he still had some doubts, and added:

"I fear you don't know all my family connections. I have a brother who
is a Jesuit."

"Jesuit be d-----!" the Premier is reported to have roared in reply.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Director! You are the Director of the Ecole
de Guerre. All the Jesuits in creation won't alter that--it is a fait
accompli."

Among the confidential bits of work worthy of note that Foch has done
for the War Department is the report he made upon the larger guns of the
French field artillery, which have done such execution in the present
war. For many weeks Foch went around the great Creusot gun works in the
blouse of a workman, testing, watching, experimenting, analyzing.

Foch was one of the high officers in France who was not in the least
surprised by the war and who had personally been holding himself in
readiness for it for years. He felt, and often said, that a great war
was inevitable; so much used he to dwell upon the certainty of war that
some persons regarded him as an alarmist when he kept declaring that
French officers should take every step within their power to get
themselves and the troops ready for active service at an instant's
notice. He also held that France as a nation should prepare to the
utmost of her power for the assured conflict.

In a recent issue of The London Times there was a description of Foch by
a Times correspondent who had been at Foch's headquarters in the north
of France. The correspondent's remarks are prefaced by the statement
that in a late dispatch General French mentions General Foch as one of
those whose help he has "once more gratefully to acknowledge." The
correspondent writes in part:

What Ernest Lavisse has clone for civilian New France in his
direction of the Ecole Normale General Foch has done in a
large measure for the officers of New France by his teaching
of strategy and tactics at the Ecole de Guerre. He left his
mark upon the whole teaching of general tactics.

I had the honor of being received recently by General Foch at
his headquarters in the north of France--a house built for
very different purposes many years ago, when Flemish civil
architecture was in its flower. The quiet atmosphere of
Flemish ease and burgomaster comfort has completely vanis