In his memoirs the compose: wrote: ‘I long to go to the mountains and put, myself in the service of 21 brigand chief. That's the life I crave: volcanoes, rocks, rich piles of plunder in mountain caves, a concert of shrieks accompanied hy an orchestra of pistols and carbines, blood and wine, a bed of lava rocked by subterranean tremors: voila la vie!’