Their father on his
infrequent visits home would enter into the sport like one of them.
A favorite excursion was up one of the neighboring hills to a cliff
known as the Bout du Puig, which commanded a wonderful view up and down
the valley. Here they would take their lunch and feel like true
mountaineers.
From Tarbes, the family moved to Polignac, where Napoleon Foch was
Public Treasurer. After Ferdinand and his brothers had attended the
school at this place for a time, they removed to the town of Rodez--and
another school.
In these early days Foch was on a par with the average schoolboy,
neither better nor worse, if local records are to be believed. He did,
however, win an honorable mention at Tarbes for good work in the
general course, consisting of geography, history, Latin, and theology.
At twelve he began to show a decided bent for mathematics, that _sine
qua non_ of the successful soldier. He had also developed into a great
reader, but preferred history to works of fiction. One of his chief
military heroes was, quite naturally, Napoleon, and he must have taken
part in imagination with the charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo, or
thrilled at the tale of Austerlitz. But never in the wildest flights
of his imagination could he have dreamed of commanding a far greater
army than was ever assembled under the eagles of Napoleon.
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