[149] In one of his letters, dated March 24, 1765, Rousseau said:—"Sur le peu que j'ai parcouru de vos mémoires, je vois que mes idées different prodigieusement de celles de votre nation. Il ne serait pas possible que le plan que je proposerais ne fît beaucoup de mécontents, et peut-être vous-même tout le premier. Or, Monsieur, je suis rassasié de disputes et de querelles."—Ed.
[150] "Je reçus bien ... la lettre de M. Paoli; mais ... il faut vous dire, Monsieur, que le bruit de la proposition que vous m'aviez faite s'étant répandu sans que je sache comment, M. de Voltaire fit entendre à tout le monde que cette proposition était une invention de sa façon; il prétendait m'avoir écrit au nom des Corses une lettre contrefaite dont j'avais été la dupe."—Rousseau to Butta-Foco, May 26, 1765.—Ed.
[151] According to Voltaire it was the French who were the most to blame. Their ambassador had disgusted the Romans by his arrogance. His servants exaggerated their master's faults, and imitated "la jeunesse indisciplinable de Paris, qui se fesait alors un honneur d'attaquer toutes les nuits le guet qui vieille à la garde de la ville!" Some of them ventured one day to fall sword in hand on the Corsican guards. The Corsicans in their turn besieged the ambassador's house. Shots were fired, and a page was killed. The ambassador at once left Rome. "Le pape différa tant qu'il put la réparation, persuadé qu' avec les Français il n'y a qu' à temporiser, et que tout s'oublie." He hanged, however, a Corsican, and he took other measures to appease Lewis XIV. He learnt with alarm that the French troops were entering Italy, and that Rome was threatened with a siege. "Dans d'autres temps les excommunications de Rome auraient suivi ces outrages; mais c'étaient des armes usées et devenues ridicules." He was forced to give full satisfaction. The pyramid mentioned by Boswell was set up, but in a few years the French King allowed it to be destroyed.—See Voltaire's "Siècle de Louis XIV.," chap. vii.—Ed.
[152] Corps Diplomatique, anno 1664.
[153] The commanders of the French troops that invaded Corsica in 1738 and 1739.—Ed.
[154] About the year 1750 potatoes were not commonly known in Kidderminster, as I know from an anecdote recorded by my grandfather.—Ed.
[155] By Corsican velvet he means the coarse stuff made in the island, which is all that the Corsicans have in stead of the fine velvet of Genoa.
[156] Abbatucci, a Corsican of a very suspicious character.
[157] The Parliament of the nation.—Ed.
[158] The Earl of Chatham. It appears from a letter published in the correspondence of the Earl of Chatham (vol. ii., p. 388) that Boswell had an interview granted him by Pitt. Boswell writes:—"I have had the honour to receive your most obliging letter, and can with difficulty restrain myself from paying you compliments on the very genteel manner in which you are pleased to treat me.... I hope that I may with propriety talk to Mr. Pitt of the views of the illustrious Paoli."—Ed.