record these recollections of my life--making excursions now and
then into interesting parts of Italy.

As to these later journeys, one, being out of the beaten track,
may be worth mentioning. It was an excursion in the islands of
Elba and Corsica. Though anything but a devotee of Napoleon, I
could not but be interested in that little empire of his on the
Italian coast, and especially in the town house, country-seat,
and garden where he planned the return to Europe which led to the
final catastrophe.

More interesting still was the visit to Corsica and, especially,
to Ajaccio. There the traveler stands before the altar where
Napoleon's father and mother were married, at the font where he
was baptized, in the rooms where he was born, played with his
brothers during his boyhood, and developed various scoundrelisms
during his young manhood: the furniture and surroundings being as
they were when he knew them.

Just around the corner from the house in which the Bonapartes
lived was the more stately residence of the more aristocratic
family of Pozzo di Borgo. It interested me as the nest in which
was reared that early playmate and rival of Napoleon, who
afterward became his most virulent, persistent, and successful
enemy, who pursued him through his whole career as a hound
pursues a wolf, and who at last aided most effectively in
bringing him down.

After exhausting the attractions of Ajaccio, we drove up a broad,
well-paved avenue, gradually rising and curving until, at a