His daily habits made him physically hard, just as his studies equipped him for continuous intellectual labour. The morning gallop in the Bois on a strong horse, such as would have carried Du Guesclin in his wars against the English in the moving Middle Ages, and his walk to the Invalides or the Ministry of War from his distant home in Auteuil gave him the training he needed. On campaign, the motor-car replaced the healthier exercise, but even then he managed to take long solitary walks which reposed his mind and recreated his body. Even the most pressing matters are not allowed to interfere with his regular rest. To bed at nine and up at six is a rule maintained even in the heat of battle. He feels it to be necessary for the equipoise of his constitution. Joffre has the great Corsican’s faculty of suspending his intellectual powers by a mere effort of the will and thus obtains complete repose of the cerebral system. His slumbers were childlike even after Charleroi; on his motor journeys, to points along the Front, he slept profoundly. This recuperative power is inestimable in a commander upon whom is cast a vast responsibility. He was often to be seen in his car behind the lines sunk in restorative sleep, his head inclined to an angle like some tired Atlas, worn with supporting the world upon his broad shoulders. This man, eminently French in heart and mind, has consistently trained for his great position. Nothing has been too great a sacrifice to secure the victory. To railwaymen, who came to thank him for his praise of them in the mobilisation, he said: "I work for the salvation of France and then I shall disappear." Just as he knows the character of the men under him, he knows the value of his own services to France and throws both into the balance at moments when every gramme of weight is of consequence. He seems able to communicate his own confidence and calm to others—he, so uncommunicative with his low voice, his gentle and pensive manner. Evidently, in this preparation of the soul for combat he must shut out the distressing sights and sounds of battle. He must not think of devastated homesteads and ruined villages, he must not think of widowed women and weeping children, nor, as he goes along the line of yesterday’s battle, must he think of what lies there, of the ghostly army that is still presenting arms to him. All these things he must banish from his mind, in the hardening processes of a great decision—this man who has never given a contrary order. And yet _Joffre l’humain_ is as just a title as any which honour him, for it expresses his natural kindness and desire to save life. And a Socialist professor wrote, in an organ of his political faith, that if, after the war, a monument was erected to the great General, no mother need turn her head away from it. Joffre was touched when he read the phrase, for he is as proud of his humanity as of those purely military virtues, which have gone to his preparation.