His life, like that of more than one
famous soldier is a bundle of paradoxes, or contradictions, but prove
once again that "truth is stranger than fiction."
Those of us who know and love Dumas's swashbuckling hero, D'Artagnan,
will remember that he was a Gascon and always spoiling for a fight.
Foch was another Gascon who passed threescore years of his life
peacefully enough--but when he did get into the fight at last, it was a
"corker"!
The Gascony of France and Spain--for it is in the Pyrenees separating
the two countries--has produced some famous men, other than Foch--and
D'Artagnan. In the fighting days of the Republic and the First Empire,
it gave to France Murat, Marbot, and Bessieres. From Gascony at a
later day came "Papa" Joffre to do his sturdy bit in saving France.
The ancestral home of the Foch family is on the Garonne River, among
the foothills of the Pyrenees. Here the river is hardly more than a
trout stream threading its way down the wooded slopes or murmuring
through the valleys. It is just such a spot as any boy would like to
call "home."
The father of Ferdinand Foch had been born here during the days of the
First Empire, when the fame of the Corsican was ringing around the
world--and had consequently been christened Napoleon. He married the
daughter of one of Bonaparte's officers, Colonel Dupre, and the family
were naturally ardent loyalists.
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