‘I was born when the country was perishing,’ he declared with a flourish. ‘Thirty thousand Frenchmen vomited onto our coasts, drowning the thrones of liberty in seas of blood, such was the odious spectacle which first met my eye. The cries of the dying, the groans of the oppressed, the tears of despair surrounded my cradle from my birth.’96 These were extraordinary sentiments from someone who had taken an oath to serve the King of France when he was commissioned as an officer.
