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David painted this five times. I am on a rearing horse, my cloak billowing in the alpine wind, pointing forward. The reality was that I crossed the Alps on a mule — a sure-footed grey mule, chosen by my guides for the terrain. I told David: I do not need to be on a horse. What I need is to look calm.

He gave me the horse anyway. Good. The painting is not a record. It is a statement of intent. The Great St Bernard Pass in May 1800. Forty thousand men, sixty artillery pieces, nine days. Hannibal had crossed with elephants fifteen hundred years before and everyone remembered. I crossed with an army and took Italy from the Austrians in two weeks. I preferred results to elephants.