His fashion of securing collaboration was also crowned with success. With great care he selected his lieutenants, and then allowed them a free hand. He refused to burden his mind with details, and left himself free to reflect upon and discuss the larger issues. Thus, he summoned an authority on horse-breeding, and gave him _carte blanche_, within certain financial limits, to establish a stud-farm and provide the island with cavalry. "Give me your report in two years’ time," he said; "meantime, do the best you can." At the appointed hour the report was forthcoming, and the Governor proceeded to act upon it. It was typical of his _modus operandi_. This faith in his _entourage_, after having tested capacity and fidelity, was justified by its results. His governorship of the island lasted nine years, and its effects were so satisfactory that it seemed as if a miracle had happened. Then, at his own request, he was nominated inspector of troops in Western and Eastern Africa, in the Antilles and Pacific. Thus his colonial career was rounded out, and his title confirmed of "the great French coloniser." In each of his posts, whether in the Soudan, in Tonking, or Madagascar, he had shown capacity and resourcefulness, an earnest and intelligent enthusiasm which had triumphed over obstacles, because science was joined to energy and knowledge to practical principles. Thus the empire he founded was not built upon sand, but upon the bed-rock of native welfare and material advancement. His success in dealing with natives arose as much from his sympathy as from his determination to study the character and antecedents of his _administrés_ with the care with which the physician studies the details of the case upon which he is engaged. Thus success came not as something due to fortune or caprice, but as a definite and calculated result. Home again after more than thirty years of distinguished colonial service, Galliéni, now a General of Division, was given the 13th Army Corps at Clermont Ferrand, and later the 14th Army Corps at Lyons, carrying with it the eventual command of the army in the Alps. In 1908 he was called to the Superior Council of War. A year or two before the Great War, which was to give him his crowning position of responsibility at the Ministry in the Rue St. Dominique, he took part in the grand manoeuvres in Touraine, and succeeded not only in out-manoeuvring "the enemy," but positively in capturing the General-in-Chief and his staff. Paris laughed long over the episode; the victorious General was anticipating his laurels in actual war. *CHAPTER XII* *THE HERO OF THE OURCQ*