But that was not the way it served him.
I want you who are interested to comprehend Ferdinand Foch, to think of those old horsefairs and race meets of his Gascony childhood, and the crowds of strange types they brought to Tarbes, when we come to the great days of his life that began in 1914—the days when his comprehension of many types of men, his ability to "get on with" them and harmonize them with one another, meant almost as much to the world as his military genius.
Tarbes had suffered so much in civil and religious wars, for many centuries, that not many of her ancient buildings were left. The old castle, with its associations with the Black Prince and other renowned warriors, was a ramshackle prison in Ferdinand Foch's youth. The old palace of the bishops was used as the prefecture, where Ferdinand's father had his office.
There were two old churches, much restored and of no great beauty, but very dear to the people of Tarbes nevertheless.
Ferdinand and his brothers and sister were very piously reared, and at an early age learned to love the church and to seek it for exaltation and consolation.
Later on in these chapters we shall see that phase of a little French boy's training in its due relation to a maréchal of France, directing the greatest army the world has ever seen.
The college of Tarbes, where Ferdinand began his school days, was in a venerable building over whose portal there was, in Latin, an inscription recording the builder's prayer:
"May this house remain standing until the ant has drunk all the waves of the sea and the tortoise has crawled round the world."
Ferdinand was a hard student, serious beyond his years, but not conspicuous except for his earnestness and diligence.
When he was twelve years old, his fervor for Napoleon led him to read Thiers' "History of the Consulate and the Empire." And about this time his professor of mathematics remarked of him that "he has the stuff of a polytechnician."