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. His idea seemed to be
that by firing cannon all day he could so deafen the enemy that at
night the French army could sneak into Toulon unheard and capture the
city, which was, to say the least, unscientific. I saw at once that
Cartaux must go, and I soon managed to make life so unbearable for
him that he resigned, and a man named Doppet, a physician, was placed
in command. Doppet was worse than Cartaux. Whenever anybody got
hurt he'd stop the war and prescribe for the injured man. If he
could have prescribed for the enemy they'd have died in greater
numbers I have no doubt, but, like the idiot he was, he practised on
his own forces. Besides, he was more interested in surgery than in
capturing Toulon. He always gave the ambulance corps the right of
line, and I believe to this day that his plan of routing the English
involved a sudden rush upon them, taking them by surprise, and the
subsequent amputation of their legs. The worst feature of the
situation, as I found it, was that these two men, falling back upon
their rights as my superior officers, refused to take orders from me.
I called their attention to the fact that rank had been abolished,
and that in France one man was now as good as another; but they were
stubborn, so I wrote to Paris and had them removed. Then came
Dugommier, who backed me up in my plans, and Toulon as a consequence
immediately fell with a dull, sickening thud."

It was during this siege that Bonaparte first encountered Junot.
Having occasion to write a note while under fire from the enemy's