You are basically correct in your assumptions Gordon.

One thing to think about though is the balancing of voltages and currents
across the string of capacitors. This is done by putting a high value
resistor in parallel with each one of the capacitors.

The method can be seen in some of the plans for high boltage power supplies
in the ARRL handbooks. If the voltages are not equally divided among the
capacitors, one will get too much voltage and it will arc over internally.

This will effectively destroy that capacitor and then the rest of them will
go bad in rapid succesion.