me that when we were leaving Passeriano he announced his
intention of passing through Mantua.

He was told that the commandant of that town, I believe General Beauvoir,
was a great chess-player, and he expressed a wish to play a game with
him: General Beauvoir asked him to point out any particular pawn with
which he would be checkmated; adding, that if the pawn were taken, he,
Bonaparte, should be declared the winner. Bonaparte pointed out the last
pawn on the left of his adversary. A mark was put upon it, and it turned
out that he actually was checkmated with that very pawn. Bonaparte was
not very well pleased at this. He liked to play with me because, though
rather a better player than himself, I was not always able to beat him.
As soon as a game was decided in his favour he declined playing any
longer; preferring to rest on his laurels.

The favourable wind which had constantly prevailed after the first twenty
days of our voyage still continued while we kept along the coast of
Sardinia; but after we had passed that island the wind again blew
violently from the west, and on the 1st of October we were forced to
enter the Gulf of Ajaccio. We sailed again next day but we found it
impossible to work our way out of the gulf. We were therefore obliged to
put into the port and land at Ajaccio. Adverse winds obliged us to
remain there until the 7th of October. It may readily be imagined how
much this delay annoyed Bonaparte. He sometimes expressed his
impatience, as if he could enforce the obedience of the elements as well
as of men. He was losing time, and time was everything to him.

There was one circumstance which seemed to annoy him as much as any of
his more serious vexations. "What will become of me," said he, "if the
English, who are cruising hereabout, should learn that I have landed in
Corsica? I shall be forced to stay here. That I could never endure. I
have a torrent of relations pouring upon me." His great reputation had
certainly prodigiously augmented the number of his family. He was over
whelmed with visits, congratulations, and requests. The whole town was
in a commotion. Every one of its inhabitants wished to claim him as
their cousin; and from the-prodigious number of his pretended godsons and
goddaughters, it might have been supposed that he had held one-fourth of
the children of Ajaccio at the baptismal font.

Bonaparte frequently walked with us in the neighbourhood of Ajaccio; and
when in all the plen