This I resisted, with the result that our whole family
was banished, and those fools of Corsicans broke into our house and
smashed all of our furniture. They little knew that that furniture,
if in existence to-day, would bring millions of francs as curios if
sold at auction. It was thus that the family came to move to France
and that I became in fact what I had been by birth--a Frenchman. If
I had remained a Corsican, Paoli's treachery would have made me an
Englishman, to which I should never have become reconciled, although
had I been an Englishman I should have taken more real pleasure out
of the battle of Waterloo than I got.
"After this I was ordered to Toulon. The French forces here were
commanded by General Cartaux, who had learned the science of war
painting portraits in Paris. He ought to have been called General
Cartoon. He besieged Toulon in a most impressionistic fashion. He'd
bombard and bombard and bombard, and then leave the public to guess
at the result. It's all well enough to be an impressionist in
painting, but when it comes to war the public want more decided
effects. When I got there, as a brigadier-general, I saw that
Cartaux was wasting his time and ammunition.
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