The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Vol. 1-4). William Milligan Sloane
of sympathy for his backward compatriots, he knew their weaknesses, and could avoid the consequences, while he recognized at the same time their virtues, and made the fullest use of them. Above all, he had the wide horizon of a philosopher, understanding fully the proportions and relations to each other of epochs and peoples, not striving to uplift Corsica merely in her own interest, but seeking to find in her regeneration a leverage to raise the world to higher things. So gracious, so influential, so far-seeing, so all-embracing was his nature, that Voltaire called him "the lawgiver and the glory of his people," while Frederick the Great dedicated to him a dagger with the inscription, "Libertas, Patria." The shadows in his character were that he was imperious and arbitrary; so overmastering that he trained the Corsicans to seek guidance and protection, thus preventing them from acquiring either personal independence or self-reliance. Awaiting at every step an impulse from their adored leader, growing timid in the moment when decision was imperative, they did not prove equal to their task. Without his people Paoli was still a philosopher; without him they became in succeeding years a byword, and fell supinely into the arms of a less noble subjection. In this regard the comparison between him and Washington, so often instituted, utterly breaks down.
"Corsica," wrote in 1790 a youth destined to lend even greater interest than Paoli to that name—"Corsica has been a prey to the ambition of her neighbors, the victim of their politics and of her own wilfulness. … We have seen her take up arms, shake the atrocious power of Genoa, recover her independence, live happily for an instant; but then, pursued by an irresistible fatality, fall again into intolerable disgrace. For twenty-four centuries these are the scenes which recur again and again; the same changes, the same misfortune, but also the same courage, the same resolution, the same boldness. … If she trembled for an instant before the feudal hydra, it was only long enough to recognize and destroy it. If, led by a natural feeling, she kissed, like a slave, the chains of Rome, she was not long in breaking them. If, finally, she bowed her head before the Ligurian aristocracy, if irresistible forces kept her twenty years in the despotic grasp of Versailles, forty years of mad warfare astonished Europe, and confounded her enemies."
The same pen wrote of Paoli that by following traditional lines he had not only shown in the constitution he framed for Corsica a historic intuition, but also had found "in his unparalleled activity, in his warm, persuasive eloquence, in his adroit and far-seeing genius," a means to guarantee it against the attacks of wicked foes.
Such was the country in whose fortunes the "age of enlightenment" was so interested. Montesquieu had used its history to illustrate the loss and recovery of privilege and rights; Rousseau had thought the little isle would one day fill all Europe with amazement. When the latter was driven into exile for his utterances, and before his flight to England, Paoli offered him a refuge. Buttafuoco, who represented the opinion that Corsica for its own good must be incorporated with France, and not merely come under her protection, had a few months previously also invited the Genevan prophet to visit the island, and outline a constitution for its people. But the snare was spread in vain. In the letter which with polished phrase declined the task, on the ground of its writer's ill-health, stood the words: "I believe that under their present leader the Corsicans have nothing to fear from Genoa. I believe, moreover, that they have nothing to fear from the troops which France is said to be transporting to their shores. What confirms me in this feeling is that, in spite of the movement, so good a patriot as you seem to be continues in the service of the country which sends them." Paoli was of the same opinion, and remained so until his rude awakening in 1768.
CHAPTER II.
The Bonapartes in Corsica.
The French Occupy Corsica—Paoli Deceived—Treaty between France and Genoa—English Intervention Vain—Paoli in England—British Problems—Introduction of the French Administrative System—Paoli's Policy—The Coming Man—Origin of the Bonapartes—The Corsican Branch—Their Nobility—Carlo Maria di Buonaparte—Maria Letizia Ramolino—Their Marriage and Naturalization as French Subjects—Their Fortunes—Their Children.
1764–72.
The preliminary occupation of Corsica by the French was ostensibly formal. The process was continued, however, until the formality became a reality, until the fortifications of the seaport towns ceded by Genoa were filled with troops. Then, for the first time, the text of the convention between the two powers was communicated to Paoli. Choiseul explained through his agent that by its first section the King guaranteed the safety and liberty of the Corsican nation. But, no doubt, he forgot to explain the double dealing in the second section. Thereby in the Italian form the Corsicans were in return to take "all right and proper measures dictated by their sense of justice and natural moderation to secure the glory and interest of the republic of Genoa," while in the French form they were "to yield to the Genoese all 'they' thought necessary to the glory and interests of their republic." Who were the "they"?—the Corsicans or the Genoese? Paoli's eye was fixed on the acknowledgment of Corsican independence; he was hoodwinked completely as to the treachery in this second section, the meaning of which, according to diplomatic usage, was settled by the interpretation which the language employed for one form put upon that in which the other was written. Combining the two translations, Italian and French, of the second section, and interpreting one by the other, the Genoese were still the arbiters of Corsican conduct and the promise of liberty contained in the first section was worthless.
Four years passed: apparently they were uneventful, but in reality Choiseul made good use of his time. Through Buttafuoco he was in regular communication with that minority among the Corsicans which desired incorporation. By the skilful manipulation of private feuds, and the unstinted use of money, this minority was before long turned into a majority. Toward the close of 1767 Choiseul began to show his hand by demanding absolute possession for France of at least two strong towns. Paoli replied that the demand was unexpected, and required consideration by the people; the answer was that the King of France could not be expected to mingle in Corsican affairs without some advantage for himself. To gain time, Paoli chose Buttafuoco as his plenipotentiary, despatched him to Versailles, and thus fell into the very trap so carefully set for him by his opponent. He consented as a compromise that Corsica should join the Bourbon-Hapsburg league. More he could not grant for love of his wild, free Corsicans, and he cherished the secret conviction that, Genoa being no longer able to assert her sovereignty, France would never allow another power to intervene, and so, for the sake of peace, might accept this solution.
But the great French minister was a master of diplomacy and would not yield. In his designs upon Corsica he had little to fear from European opposition. He knew how hampered England was by the strength of parliamentary opposition, and the unrest of her American colonies. The Sardinian monarchy was still weak, and quailed under the jealous eyes of her strong enemies. Austria could not act without breaking the league so essential to her welfare, while the Bourbon courts of Spain and Naples would regard the family aggrandizement with complacency. Moreover, something must be done to save the prestige of France: her American colonial empire was lost; Catherine's brilliant policy, and the subsequent victories of Russia in the Orient, were threatening what remained of French influence in that quarter. Here was a propitious moment to emulate once more the English: to seize a station on the Indian highroad as valuable as Gibraltar or Port Mahon, and to raise high hopes of again recovering, if not the colonial supremacy among nations, at least that equality which the Seven Years' War had destroyed. Without loss of time, therefore, the negotiations were ended, and Buttafuoco was dismissed. On May fifteenth, 1768, the price to be paid having been fixed, a definitive treaty with Genoa was signed whereby she yielded the exercise of sovereignty to France, and Corsica passed finally from her hands. Paoli appealed to the great powers against this arbitrary transfer, but in vain.
The campaign of subjugation opened at once, Buttafuoco, with a few other Corsicans, taking service against his kinsfolk. The soldiers of the Royal Corsican regiment, which was in the French service, and which had been formed under his father's influence, flatly refused to fight their brethren. The French troops already in the island were at once reinforced, but during the first year of the final conflict the advantage was all with the patriots;