  We discuss the phase coherence which emanates from the ladder-like proximity
effect between a ``weak superconductor'' with preformed bosonic pairs (here, a
single-chain Luther-Emery liquid with superconducting correlations that decay
approximately as $x^{-1}$) and a Fermi gas with unpaired fermions. Carefully
studying tunneling mechanism(s), we show that the boson-mediated Cooper pairing
between remaining unpaired electrons results in a quasi long-range
superconductivity: Superconducting correlations decay very slowly as
$x^{-\eta}$ with $\eta\approx 1/2$. This process is reminiscent of the coupling
of fermions to preformed bosonic pairs introduced in the context of high-Tc
cuprates.
