CHAPTER VI.
NAPOLEON'S LATEST ACTIVITY IN CORSICA.
In the year 1790, two battalions were to be formed in Corsica, the soldiers being allowed to name their chefs themselves. It is worth noticing on this occasion, how the subsequent Cæsar, Napoleon, holds it for the highest honour, and an almost unattainable piece of good fortune, to become chef of a battalion. The difficulties were as great as the energy of the young candidate. The most influential men of Ajaccio were opposed to him, Cuneo, Ludovico Ornano, Ugo Peretti, Matias Pozzo di Borgo, and the rich Marius Peraldi. Peraldi laughed at Napoleon, ridiculed his personal appearance, his diminutive stature, his limited prospects. This made Napoleon furious, and he challenged him. Peraldi agreed to a duel. His rival waited for him till nightfall at the little Chapel of the Greeks, walking restlessly up and down; but Peraldi did not make his appearance; his family had found means to prevent the duel.
The wanderer who now takes his way to the Chapel of the Greeks, to enjoy from it the beautiful view of the city and gulf, sees above him, on the rocks of the shore, a little Ionic temple. I asked what it meant, and was told it was the tomb of the Peraldi. Marius, the rival of Napoleon for a Major's commission, lies buried there. His family has left behind it no other reputation than that of having been one of the wealthiest in Corsica.
Madame Letitia sacrificed half her fortune to procure her favourite son the command of the battalion. Her house was constantly open to Napoleon's numerous party, her table always covered. Mattresses lay constantly ready in the rooms and in the passages, to receive his armed adherents during the night. It was as if the house were in a state of defence from the Vendetta. Matters looked threatening. Napoleon was never so excited as at this period; he could not sleep at night, during the day he wandered restlessly through the rooms, or deliberated with the Abbé Fesch and his partisans. He was pale and abstracted; his eyes full of fire, his soul full of passion. Perhaps he approached the consulship and the empire more calmly than the rank of major in the National Guard of Ajaccio.
The commissary, who was to conduct the election, had arrived, and was lodging in the house of the Peraldi. This was alarming. It was resolved, therefore, on the 18th Brumaire, to have recourse to stratagem. The partisans of Napoleon arm themselves; one of these—the fierce and reckless Bagaglino, armed to the teeth—forces his way at night into the house of the Peraldi, where the family are sitting at supper with the commissary. "Madame Letitia wishes to speak with you," cries Bagaglino threateningly; "and immediately!" The commissary follows him, the Peraldi not venturing to detain their guest; who, carried off by the Napoleonists, is compelled to quarter himself in the Casa Bonaparte, under the pretext that with the Peraldi he was not free. This little coup d'état shows us Napoleon complete.
The Casa Bonaparte now held itself ready for an assault; but Peraldi made no attempt. The day of the election came, and the people assembled in the Church of San Francesco. A disturbance arose, Geronimo Pozzo di Borgo was torn from the pulpit, and with difficulty rescued. The result of the election was this: Quenza, a Bonapartist, was made first chef—Napoleon, the second. The victory was almost complete, and the unattainable all but attained; Napoleon was second in command of a battalion.
Napoleon lived henceforth only among his soldiers, and he was the soul of his battalion. He now made his practical military studies before engaging in actual warfare, as he had received his political schooling in the clubs. Meanwhile, the irritation between the national battalion and the aristocrats and citizens—the latter worked upon by the priests—grew stronger every day. After seeing the highland Corsicans of the present time, one can form some idea of the nature and appearance of that Quenza-Napoleon battalion. The citizens of Ajaccio may not have dreaded this troop of Montagnards in the process of training altogether groundlessly. On Easter-day, of the year 1792, open hostilities commenced between the battalion and the inhabitants of Ajaccio. The struggle began on the Place du Diamant; the fighting lasted several days, and a great deal of blood was shed, neither the civil authorities nor the military commandant, Maillard, interfering. Napoleon escaped without injury. When quiet was re-established, he drew up a justification, in the name of the battalion, and addressed it to the Department, to the Minister of War, and the Legislative. Three commissaries hereupon appeared in Ajaccio; they returned a favourable report as to the conduct of the battalion, but it was removed from the town. Napoleon went to Corte, where Paoli received him coldly.
In May of the same year, he made a journey to Paris to bring his sister Eliza from St. Cyr. The changes in the political world took him here by surprise, and shattered all the hopes of military promotion which he had thought to realize in Paris. This is said to have produced so powerful an effect on the passionate nature of the young Corsican, as to make him entertain thoughts of suicide. He freed himself from them in a dialogue on self-murder. Napoleon left Paris soon after the frightful 2d of September, and returned to Corsica.
While Dumouriez, therefore, was astonishing the world with the first military achievements of the young Republic, the man who was destined to give new shape to Europe, was exerting himself in the wild Corsica, to make head against the cabals of his opponents—himself forming counter-cabals, and daily exposing his life to the dagger-thrust and the musket-ball. Arrived again in Corte, Paoli received him austerely. The paths of the two had completely separated; for another ambition was now stirring in the soul of the young Napoleon than to tread in the footsteps of the noble patriot. Had he done so—had his heart remained warm for the freedom of Corsica, then perhaps a wild goat-herd, as he pointed out to me some spot among the hills associated with a tale of blood, would have said: "See, it was here the Corsican patriot-leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, fell; he was almost as great as Sampiero."