"Go to; the boy is a born generalissimo, and is destined to be a Marshal of France," said M. Ricot, holding up his hands in amazement. The boy referred to was a little fellow seven or eight years of age, by name Louis Joseph de Saint Veran. M. Ricot was his tutor, and was led to express himself after this fashion in consequence of some precocious criticisms of his pupil on the tactics employed by Caius Julius Caesar at a battle fought in Transalpine Gaul fifty odd years before the advent of the Christian era. It was evident to the critic's youthful mind that the battle ought to have resulted differently, and that if the foes of "the mighty Julius" had had the wit to take advantage of his indiscretion, certain pages of the "Commentaries" might have been conceived in a less boastful spirit. Little Louis Joseph had sketched a rough plan, showing the respective positions of the opposing forces, and had then demanded of his tutor why _this_ had not been done, why _that_ had been neglected, and why _the other_ had never been even so much as thought of. M. Ricot, after carefully following out the reasoning of his pupil, could find no weak point therein, and was fain to admit that the Great Roman had been guilty of a huge blunder in the arrangement of his forces. Fortunately for the General's military reputation, the Gauls had been beaten in spite of his defective strategy, and he himself had survived to transmit to posterity a rather egotistical account of the affair. M. Ricot had been reading those "Commentaries" all his life--reading them, as he supposed, critically--but he had never lighted upon the discovery which his present pupil had made upon a first perusal. Well might he exclaim, "Go to; the boy is a born generalissimo, and is destined to be a marshal of France."