The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Vol. 1-4). William Milligan Sloane
Administration—Meeting of Napoleon and Paoli—Corsican Politics—Studies in Society.
1790.
What was to be the future of one whose feelings were so hostile to the nation with the fortunes of which he now seemed irrevocably identified? There is no evidence that Buonaparte ever asked himself such disquieting questions. To judge from his conduct, he was not in the least troubled. Fully aware of the disorganization, both social and military, which was well-nigh universal in France, with two months more of his furlough yet unexpired, he awaited developments, not hastening to meet difficulties before they presented themselves. What the young democrats could do, they did. The town government was entirely reorganized, with a friend of the Buonapartes as mayor, and Joseph—employed at last!—as his secretary. A local guard was also raised and equipped. Being French, however, and not Corsican, Napoleon could not accept a command in it, for he was already an officer in the French army. But he served in the ranks as a common soldier, and was an ardent agitator in the club, which almost immediately reopened its doors. In the impossibility of further action there was a relapse into authorship. The history of Corsica was again revised, though not softened; the letters into which it was divided were addressed to Raynal. In collaboration with Fesch, Buonaparte also drew up a memoir on the oath which was required from priests.
When Paoli first received news of the amnesty granted at the instance of Mirabeau, and of the action taken by the French Assembly, which had made Corsica a French department, he was delighted and deeply moved. His noble instincts told him at once that he could no longer live in the enjoyment of an English pension or even in England; for he was convinced that his country would eventually reach a more perfect autonomy under France than under the wing of any other power, and that as a patriot he must not fail even in appearance to maintain that position. But he also felt that his return to Corsica would endanger the success of this policy; the ardent mountaineers would demand more extreme measures for complete independence than he could take; the lowlanders would be angry at the attitude of sympathy with his old friends which he must assume. In a spirit of self-sacrifice, therefore, he made ready to exchange his comfortable exile for one more uncongenial and of course more bitter.
But the National Assembly, with less insight, desired nothing so much as his presence in the new French department. He was growing old, and yielded against his better judgment to the united solicitation of French interest and of Corsican impolicy. Passing through France, he was detained for over two months by the ovations forced upon him. In Paris the King urged him to accept honors of every kind; but they were firmly refused: the reception, however, which the Assembly gave him in the name of liberty, he declared to be the proudest occasion of his life. At Lyons the populace crowded the streets to cheer him, and delegations from the chief towns of his native island met him to solicit for each of their respective cities the honor of his landing. On July fourteenth, 1790, after twenty-one years of exile, the now aged hero set foot on Corsican land at Maginajo, near Capo Corso. His first act was to kneel and kiss the soil. The nearest town was Bastia, the revolutionary capital. There and elsewhere the rejoicings were general, and the ceremonies were such as only the warm hearts and willing hands of a primitive Italian people could devise and perform. Not one true Corsican but must "see and hear and touch him." But in less than a month his conduct was, as he had foreseen, so misrepresented by friend and foe alike, that it was necessary to defend him in Paris against the charge of scheming to hand over the island to England.
It is not entirely clear where Buonaparte was during this time. It is said that he was seen in Valence during the latter part of January, and the fact is adduced to show how deep and secret were his plans for preserving the double chance of an opening in either France or Corsica, as matters might turn out. The love-affair to which he refers in that thesis on the topic to which reference has been made would be an equally satisfactory explanation, considering his age. Whatever was the fact as to those few days, he was not absent long. The serious division between the executive in France and the new Assembly came to light in an ugly circumstance which occurred in March. On the eighteenth a French flotilla unexpectedly appeared off St. Florent. It was commanded by Rully, an ardent royalist, who had long been employed in Corsica. His secret instructions were to embark the French troops, and to leave the island to its fate. This was an adroit stab at the republicans of the Assembly; for, should the evacuation be secured, it was believed that either the radicals in Corsica would rise, overpower, and destroy the friends of France, call in English help, and diminish the number of democratic departments by one, or that Genoa would immediately step in and reassert her sovereignty. The moderates of St. Florent were not to be thus duped; sharp and angry discussions arose among both citizens and troops as to the obedience due to such orders, and soon both soldiers and townsfolk were in a frenzy of excitement. A collision between the two parties occurred, and Rully was killed. Papers were found on his person which proved that his sympathizers would gladly have abandoned Corsica to its fate. For the moment the young Corsicans were more devoted than ever to Paoli, since now only through his good offices with the French Assembly could a chance for the success of their plans be secured.
Such was the diversity of opinion as to ways and means, as to resources, opportunities, and details, that everything was, for the moment, in confusion. On April sixteenth Buonaparte applied for an extension of his furlough until the following October, on the plea of continued ill-health, that he might drink the waters a second time at Orezza, whose springs, he explained, had shown themselves to be efficacious in his complaint. He may have been at that resort once before, or he may not. Doubtless the fever was still lingering in his system. What the degree of his illness was we cannot tell. It may have unfitted him for active service with his regiment; it did not disable him from pursuing his occupations in writing and political agitation. His request was granted on May twentieth. The history of Corsica was now finally revised, and the new dedication completed. This, with a letter and some chapters of the book, was forwarded to Raynal, probably by post. Joseph, who was one of the delegates to meet Paoli, would pass through Marseilles, wrote Napoleon to the abbé, and would hand him the rest if he should so desire. The text of the unlucky book was not materially altered. Its theory appears always to have been that history is but a succession of great names, and the story, therefore, is more a biographical record than a connected narrative. The dedication, however, was a new step in the painful progress of more accurate thinking and better expression; the additions to the volume contained, amid many immaturities and platitudes, some ripe and clever thought. Buonaparte's passion for his bantling was once more the ardor of a misdirected genius unsullied by the desire for money, which had played a temporary part.
We know nothing definite of his pecuniary affairs, but somehow or other his fortunes must have mended. There is no other explanation of his numerous and costly journeys, and we hear that for a time he had money in his purse. In the will which he dictated at St. Helena is a bequest of one hundred thousand francs to the children of his friend who was the first mayor of Ajaccio by the popular will. It is not unlikely that the legacy was a grateful souvenir of advances made about this time. There is another possible explanation. The club of Ajaccio had chosen a delegation, of which Joseph Buonaparte was a member, to bring Paoli home from France. To meet its expenses, the municipality had forced the authorities of the priests' seminary to open their strong box and to hand over upward of two thousand francs. Napoleon may have shared Joseph's portion. We should be reminded in such a stroke, but with a difference, to be sure, of what happened when, a few years later, the hungry and ragged soldiers of the Republic were led into the fat plains of Lombardy.
The contemptuous attitude of the Ajaccio liberals toward the religion of Rome seriously alienated the superstitious populace from them. Buonaparte was once attacked in the public square by a procession organized to deprecate the policy of the National Assembly with regard to the ecclesiastical estates. One of the few royalist officials left in Corsica also took advantage of the general disorder to express his feelings plainly as to the acts of the same body. He was arrested, tried in Ajaccio, and acquitted by a sympathetic judge. At once the liberals took alarm; their club and the officials first protested, and then on June twenty-fifth assumed the offensive in the name of the Assembly. It was on this occasion probably that he was seen by the family friend who narrated his memories to the English diarist already mentioned. "I remember to have seen Napoleon very active among the enraged populace against those then called aristocrats, and running through the streets of Ajaccio so busy in promoting dissatisfaction