their fellows, but to
every individual soul fighting alone against weakness and despair and
other foes, his life-story brings a rising tide of new courage, new
strength, new faith.

For the young man or woman struggling with the principles of success;
for the man or woman of middle life, fearful that the time for great
service has gone by; to the preacher and the teacher and other moulders
of ideals--to these, and to many more, he speaks at least as
thrillingly as to the soldier.

This is what I have tried to make clear in my simple sketch here
offered.

I

WHERE HE WAS BORN

Ferdinand Foch was born at Tarbes on October 2, 1851.

His father, of good old Pyrenean stock and modest fortune, was a
provincial official whose office corresponded to that of secretary of
state for one of our commonwealths. So the family lived in Tarbes, the
capital of the department called the Upper Pyrenees.

The mother of Ferdinand was Sophie Dupre, born at Argeles, twenty miles
south of Tarbes, nearer the Spanish border. Her father had been made a
chevalier of the empire by Napoleon I for services in the war with
Spain, and the great Emperor's memory was piously venerated in Sophie
Dupre's new home as it had been in her old one. So her first-born son
may be said to have inherited that passion for Napoleon which has
characterized his life and played so great a part in making him what he
is.

There was a little sister in the family which welcomed Ferdinand. And
in course of time two other boys came.

[Illustration: The Room in Which Ferdinand Foch was Born.]

[Illustration: The House in Tarbes Where Foch was Born.]

These four children led the ordinary life of happy young folks in
France. But there was much in their surroundings that was richly
colorful, romantic. Probably they took it all for granted, the way
children (and many who are not children) take their near and intimate
world. But even if they did, it must have had its deep effect upon
them.

To begin with, there was Tarbes.

Tarbes is a very ancient city. It is twenty-five miles southeast of
Pau, where Henry of Navarre made his dramatic entry upon a highly
dramatic career, and just half that distance northeast of Lourdes,
whose famous pilgrimages began when Ferdinand Foch was a little boy of
seven.

He must have heard many soul-stirring tales about little Bernadette,
the peasant girl to whom the grotto's miraculous qualities were
revealed by the Virg