"Development," mind you--not just "advancement." For Foch is, and ever
has been, the kind of man who would most abhor being advanced faster
than he developed.

He would infinitely rather be prepared for a promotion and fail to get
it than get a promotion for which he was not thoroughly prepared.

Nor is he the sort of individual who can comfortably deceive himself
about his fitness. He sustains himself by no illusions of the variety:
"If I had so-and-so to do, I'd probably get through as well as
nine-tenths of commanders would."

He is much more concerned to satisfy himself that his thoroughness is
as complete as he could possibly have made it, than he is to "get by"
and satisfy the powers that be!

So we know that it wasn't any mere longing for the scenes of his happy
childhood which directed his choice of Tarbes garrison when he left the
enchanting region of Fontainebleau, with its fairy forest, its
delightful old town, and its many memories of Napoleon.

His mind seems to have been fixed upon a course involving more cavalry
skill than was his on graduating. And after two years at Tarbes, with
much riding of the fine horses of Arabian breed which are the specialty
of that region, he went to the Cavalry School at Saumur, on the Loire.

King René of Anjou, whose chronic poverty does not seem to have
interfered with his taste for having innumerable castles, had one at
Saumur, and it still dominates the town and lends it an air of
medievalism.