Truly there was nothing very auspicious in the start of Joseph Joffre.
His father was merely a cooper in a straggling hillside town of the
Pyrenees in Southern France, Rivesaltas--but he was a good cooper. His
neighbors had a saying that is preserved to this day: "Barrels as good as
those made by old Gilles Joffre."
The town itself had some six thousand inhabitants, and was situated on
the River Agly, about nine miles from the city of Perpignan. The Joffre
home was a very plain and humble dwelling set alongside of the cooper
shop, and neither better nor worse than its neighbors--but the well-to-do
workman of today would turn up his nose at it. Nevertheless in this home
were born eleven children, the oldest of whom was the future Marshal of
France. And the father continued to live there for thirty years or more.
It is related of him that even as a baby Joseph never cried, but endured
his various troubles with silent stoicism. As he grew older, this trait
of silence became ingrown; it was alluded to as "Joffre's taciturnity."
But as a matter of fact the gift of silence in him as both boy and man
did not indicate a sullen or unfriendly disposition. It was merely that
he had his head in the clouds. He made a life job of _thinking_--like
the seated statue by Rodin.
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