The king made a promotion of sea officers; commodores were appointed, captains and old lieutenants were promoted, and there was so much bustle made about the state of the marine, that the court of London began to take umbrage at it.
A foreign embassador told me one day upon this occasion, that he discerned a great error in the French government, that is to say, “that we make a shew of ourselves to all Europe and our enemies. He added, there are no secrets of state at Versailles; all Christendom is informed of the designs of France, long before she is in a condition to execute them, whereby they are frustrated.”
An affair that no way related to France, excited the attention of the king for a short time. The Genoese (an unsteady people, and who have never been in a state of tranquility since the foundation of their republic) had carried on a war for a long time against the Corsicans, whom they stiled rebels, whilst the Corsicans gave them the appellation of tyrants. There had been several engagements between them, which served only to protract the war, as peace must ever be the result of a reconciliation of sentiments. Hatred and antipathy had barred all the avenues to a mediation. Their aversion to each other surpassed their reciprocal dread. If religion itself had fomented a division, it could not have been more animated.
Marshal Belleisle, speaking to me of this war, often told me that the Genoese would never be rulers over the Corsicans; for which he assigned this reason; “When the principal state combats with its subjects, the first battle must decide the quarrel, otherwise it will remain for a long time undetermined. Rebels, who by sieges and battles, poise the sovereign authority, no longer bear the name of subjects, but adopt that of enemies; for the force of arms, which destroys all privilege, restores the level.”
Such people as are in subjection to kings, would no longer be so, if they were capable of throwing off their submission; for subordination was not agreed upon by convention, but compelled by violence or open force. So that a people who throw off the yoke, are not rebels any farther than their ill conduct in the revolution, and their ignorance to procure the means of success, give them this title.
The Genoese, after fruitless endeavours to reduce the Corsicans, took a wrong step in addressing themselves to foreign powers; France, of whom they had asked succours, furnished them with some troops and a commander. The Venetian embassador, who was then at Paris, said upon this occasion; “That the Genoese, who were reckoned to be people of great memory, had lost their recollection with regard to France, as they forgot that she bombarded Genoa in the time of Lewis XIV. and that the republic narrowly escaped from destruction through her, in the reign of Lewis XV.”
The Genoese officers, whom the senate had appointed and sent to that island for the defence of their rights, were greater foes to the republic than they were to the Corsicans, seeking disputes with the French mediators, under pretence that they excited those islanders to hold them in contempt. If the allegation had been just, they should have connived at it, and pursued, without interruption, the restoration of peace. But envy, that vice so natural to Italians, and particularly the Genoese, occasioned this dissention. They saw with jealous eyes, foreigners interfering in a peace, all the honour of which they were desirous of keeping to themselves. The republic, equally jealous of their own officers, as these were of the French, took another ill-judged measure, by making application to the court of Versailles, to know how they should act against themselves, and what satisfaction the king required. Any other nation would rather have given up their interest with respect to Corsica, which even France could not bring back to its duty, than to have thus humbled themselves: but the republic of Genoa have been long accustomed to meanness and submission.
“The Genoese, said the King, deserve to be punished, by my interfering no longer with their affairs: but they have paved the way for my son Don Philip into Italy, and I owe them some acknowledgment—this predominates in my heart over the resentment which their conduct deserves.”
Lewis XV. who had appointed M. de Chauvelin plenipotentiary in the island of Corsica, to terminate matters in an amicable manner, gave him fresh instructions to hasten his negociation, and new orders were dispatched to the marquis of Cursai, who commanded the French troops.
These two mediators settled the place for holding a congress, and peace was in appearance concluded. All formalities were observed: Harangues were made at the opening of the assemblies, and flowers of rhetoric were scattered amongst an ignorant and barbarous people. The Corsicans stretched their large ears to these studied orations, but did not understand a syllable. They replied with acclamations, and the orators imagined they had seduced them by their eloquence.