"Maman! à quel saint prie-t-on—" began Jeanne. Ah! but no, a recollection flashed across her mind and was reinforced by other memories. "J'en ai fini avec les saints," she mused, proceeding to the other end of the room where, full of intention, she busied herself among some books. Yes, she was now quite disillusioned; that latest blow, on her recent tenth birthday, had confirmed finally her long-growing suspicion—prayer to the saints was unavailing.
After a time; "Maman, pour que Papa vienne en permission à qui faut-il que l'on s'adresse?"
"A son colonel, mon enfant. Mais, ma fi-fille, tu sais...!"
Jeanne, with an air of having something to decide for herself, paid no heed, but resumed the study of her picture-book description of the French Army, murmuring: "Un colonel—est-ce que c'est comme un saint, ou bien est-ce que c'est comme le bon Dieu lui-même?"
Some moments of deep silence spent in intense study ended with a triumphant: "Bon! j'y suis." That was exactly what she had wished to discover, the very source of power. "'Les officiers attachés à un général pour l'exécution et la transmission de ses ordres,'" re-read Jeanne, and commented, "Et tout cela s'appelle l'é-tat ma-jor du général. Bon! c'est bien comme je le pensais; c'est le général qui est à la tête de tout."
Her course was now quite clear. She urged and encouraged herself: "Il faut absolument que Papa vienne en permission. Je—le—veux!" And, that her intentions might not be thwarted, absolute secrecy must be maintained, at least in so far as the chapter relating to her terrestrial tactics was concerned; no one would oppose intercession auprès du bon Dieu.
"Il faut m'adresser à tous les deux en même temps," pronounced Jeanne, taking a sheet of note-paper. "J'écris directement au général" (since time and space have to be allowed for in earthly negotiations, the order must be thus)—"et je prie le bon Dieu en personne." That both positions should be assailed simultaneously, operations must be begun in this quarter in the morning, at the hour of the first postal delivery.
"Point de saints, ni de colonels—maintenant je comprends—l'é-tat-ma-jor dans l'Armée et les saints au Paradis, c'est tout comme!"