Corsica
An evening in Corte, Corsica
This is an embarrassing story. Basically Bunny and I made friends with a local couple - I seem to recall we did them some slight favor - who insisted we come home to their little apartment and share their meal. Wine was served and everything was very jolly until the main dish appeared. Our host beamed. He was vastly proud of his wife. Our hostess beamed. She was vastly proud of her cooking. I tucked in with gusto - it looked like pasta in the dim light. Then I nearly retched. It was tripe. Some people love it but I don't have tripe friendly taste buds. It gives me the heebie-jeebies. Just when I was trying to think what to do, the power failed and for a minute or two we were in darkness until our host found a candle. Meanwhile I dumped my meal in the window box and then covered my leaving the table by saying I just had to take a photograph. It ended up as a pretty good evening but I still squirm when I think of what they must have thought when watering the geraniums.
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A castle of the Legion in Corte, Corsica
The French Foreign Legion used to be based primarily in North Africa but when the French withdrew from Algeria - after a long and bloody war during which the Legion paratroops fought with particular distinction and effectiveness - the Legion was transferred to France and Corsica. And this is where I found them for the first time. It is hard to imagine a more dramatic location. In truth there was also a more modern barracks built just outside the town of Corte which is located in a bowl of mountains in the center of Corsica. It was great training terrain if you were a mountain goat or a Legionnaire.
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Bunny and admirer in the Corsican mountains
Bunny and I went to Corsica primarily to hunt down the French Foreign Legion - which we found. A secondary objective was to find a Corsican bandit or two - Corsica being famous for its bandits who supposedly lurk in the mountains and prey on innocent passers by. Somehow it never occurred to us that we might be preyed upon. Eventually we ended up in a hostelry high up in the mountains where just about everybody in the place was armed. Do friendly peasants carry automatic pistols in shoulder holsters? And there was a fair sprinkling of automatic weapons as well as the ubiquitous shotguns. The Corsicans are great hunters. By the time I had figured out that maybe we had gone a bar or two too far, it was too late to retreat. I need not have worried. Bunny's charm never failed. It was an interesting evening.
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Go through these doors and you are the Legion's for five years
France lost so many of its citizens in the Napoleonic Wars that it was decided it was politically expedient to hire mercenaries to go colonizing - as was all the rage in the nineteenth century. French citizens were not allowed to join the Legion except temporarily as officers and from the beginning the rule was that every soldier, no matter what his native language, would speak French, work in multi-national units and swear fidelity to the Legion. Despite the fact that the pay was derisory, discipline harsh and conditions arduous in the extreme, the Legion soon built up an astonishing combat record. These days pay and conditions are better and the Legion is a major component in France's rapid response forces. Training remains as tough as ever. Enlist and the Legion will own you for five years. But you will look great in your uniform.
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