anguish he suffered because of what he could not do to save France from
humiliation were laid the foundations of all that he has contributed to
the glory of new France.

At the time when his Fall term should have been beginning at Saint
Clément's College, Metz was under siege by the German army, and its
garrison and inhabitants were suffering horribly from hunger and
disease; Paris was surrounded; the German headquarters were at
Versailles; and the imperial standards so dear to young Foch because of
the great Napoleon were forever lowered when the white flag was hoisted
at Sedan and an Emperor with a whole army passed into captivity.

How much the young soldier-student of the Saône comprehended then of
the needlessness of the shame and surrender of those inglorious days we
do not know. He cannot have been sufficiently versed in military
understanding to realize how much of the defeat France suffered was due
to her failure to fight on, at this juncture and that, when a stiffer
resistance would have turned the course of events.

But if he did not know then, he certainly knew later. And as soon as
he got where he could impress his convictions upon other soldiers of
the new France he began training them in his great maxim: "A battle is
lost when you admit defeat."

What his devotion to Saint Clément's College was we may know from the
fact of his return there to resume his interrupted studies under the
same teachers, but in sadly different circumstances.

He found German troops quartered in parts of the college, and as he
went to and from his classes the young man who had just laid off the