permanence seemed to characterize her.

Yet she has always had her quota--a larger one, too, than that of any
other country--of those who look toward far to-morrows and seek to
build substantially and beautifully for them.

That forward-looking prayer of old Navarre, and recollection of the
centuries during which it had prevailed against destroying forces, was
undoubtedly an aid and comfort to the heavy-hearted youth who then and
there set himself to the study of that art of war wherewith he was to
serve France.

Among the two hundred and odd fellow-students of Foch at the
Polytechnic was another young man from the south--almost a neighbor of
his and his junior by just three months--Jacques Joseph Césaire Joffre,
who had entered the school in 1869, interrupted his studies to go to
war, and resumed them shortly before Ferdinand Foch entered the
Polytechnic.

Joffre graduated from the Polytechnic on September 21, 1872, and went
thence to the School of Applied Artillery at Fontainebleau.

Foch left the Polytechnic about six months later, and also went to
Fontainebleau for the same special training that Joffre was taking.

Both young men were hard students and tremendously in earnest. Both
were heavy-hearted for France. Both hoped the day would come when they
might serve her and help to restore to her that of which she had been
despoiled.