of thirteen. In the following year (1866) he joined the _Britannia_ as
a cadet. Four years of strenuous naval work followed. But like another
Field-Marshal-to-be, Sir Evelyn Wood, the boy was not apparently
enamoured of the sea. As a result he decided to leave that branch of
the service.

That action is typical of the man. He is ruthless with himself as well
as with others. If the Navy were not to give scope for his ambition,
then he must quit the Navy. Already, no doubt, his life-long hero,
Napoleon, was kindling the young man's imagination. But the English
Navy of those days gave little encouragement to the Napoleonic point
of view. It was bound up with the sternest discipline and much red
tape. If rumour speaks true young French was irritated by the almost
despotic powers then possessed by certain naval officers. So he boldly
decided at the age of eighteen to end one career and commence another.

To enter the sister service he had to stoop to what is dubbed the
"back-door," in other words a commission in the militia. It seems
rather remarkable that one of our most brilliant officers should have
had this difficulty to face. Incidentally it is a curious sidelight on
the system of competitive examinations. But there are several facts to
remember. Sir John French's genius developed slowly. One does not
figure him as ready, like Kitchener, at twenty-one, with a complete
map of his career. In these days he was probably more interested in
hunting than in soldiering. The man who is now proverbial for his
devotion to the study of tactics was then very little of a book-worm.
Indeed he seems to have shown no special intellectual or practical
abilities until much later in life.

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