Madame Sans Gene, and subsequently, through his own advancement, made
her the Duchess of Dantzig. The anecdote suffices to show how
wretchedly poor and yet how full of interest and useful to those
about him Napoleon was at the time.

In February, 1793, a change for the better in his fortunes occurred.
Bonaparte, in cooperation with Admiral Turget, was ordered to make a
descent upon Sardinia. What immediately followed can best be told in
Bonaparte's own words. "My descent was all right," he said
afterwards, "and I had the Sardines all ready to put in boxes, when
Turget had a fit of sea-sickness, lost his bearings, and left me in
the lurch. There was nothing left for me but to go back to Corsica
and take it out of Joseph, which I did, much to Joseph's unhappiness.
It was well for the family that I did so, for hardly had I arrived at
Ajaccio when I found my old friend Paoli wrapping Corsica up in a
brown-paper bundle to send to the King of England with his
compliments. 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