Soldiers and government officials and foreign diplomats dominate the
quarter--and homes of the old French aristocracy.

The Hotel des Invalides, founded by Louis XIV and designed to
accommodate, as an old soldiers' home, some seven thousand veterans of
his unending wars, has latterly served as headquarters for the military
governor of Paris, and also--principally--as a war museum.

Here are housed collections of priceless worth and transcendent interest.
The museum of artillery contains ten thousand specimens of weapons and
armor of all kinds, ancient and modern. The historical museum, across
the court of honor, was--in the years when I spent many fascinating hours
there--extraordinarily rich in personal souvenirs of scores of
illustrious personages.

What it must be now, after the tragic years of a world war, and what it
will become as a treasure house for the years to come, is beyond my
imagination.

It was into this enormously rich atmosphere, pregnant with everything
that conserves France's most glorious military traditions, that Captain
Ferdinand Foch was called in 1885 for two years of intensive training and
study.




VII