This result was a second defeat for Napoleon Buonaparte, who was almost certainly the instigator and leader of the uprising. He had been ready at any moment to assume the direction of affairs, but again the outcome of such a movement as could alone secure a possible temporary independence for Corsica and a military command for himself was absolutely naught. Little perturbed by failure, he took up the pen to write a proclamation justifying the action of the municipal authorities. The paper was dated October thirty-first, 1789, and fearlessly signed both by himself and the other leaders, including the mayor. It execrates the sympathizers with the old order in France, and lauds the Assembly, with all its works; denounces those who sold the land to France, which could offer nothing but an end of the chain that bound her; and warns the enemies of the new constitution that their day is over. There is a longing reference to the ideal self-determination which the previous attempt might have secured. The present rising is justified, however, as an effort to carry out the principles of the new charter.[21] There are the same suggested force and suppressed fury as in his previous manifesto, the same fervid rhetoric, the same lack of coherence in expression. The same two elements, that of the eighteenth-century metaphysics and that of his own uncultured force, combine in the composition. Naturally enough, the unrest of the town was not diminished; there was even a slight collision between the garrison and the civil authorities.
Buonaparte was of course suspected and hated by Catholics and military alike. French officer though he was, no one in Corsica thought of him otherwise than as a Corsican revolutionist. Among his own friends he continued his unswerving career. It was he who was chosen to write the address from Ajaccio to Paoli, although the two men did not meet until somewhat later. With the arrival of the great liberator the grasp of the old officials on the island relaxed, and the bluster of the few who had grown rich in the royal service ceased. The Assembly was finally triumphant; this new department was at last to be organized like those of the adoptive mother. It was high time, for the public order was seriously endangered in this transition period. The disturbances at Ajaccio had been trifling compared with the revolutionary procedure inaugurated and carried to extremes in Bastia. This city being the capital and residence of the governor, Buonaparte and his comrades had no sooner completed their address to the French Assembly than they hurried thither to beard de Barrin and revolutionize the garrison. Their success was complete: garrison and citizens alike were roused and the governor cowed. Both soldiers and people assumed the tricolor cockade on November fifth, 1789. Barrin even assented to the formation of a national militia. On this basis order was established. This was another affair from that at Ajaccio and attracted the attention of the Paris Assembly, strongly influencing the government in its arrangements with Paoli. The young Buonaparte was naturally very uneasy as to his position and so remained fairly quiet until February, when the incorporation of the island with France was completed. Immediately he gave free vent to his energies. Two letters of Napoleon's written in August, 1790, display a feverish spirit of unrest in himself, and enumerate the many uprisings in the neighborhood with their varying degrees of success. Under provisional authority, arrangements were made, after some delay, to hold elections for the officials of the new system whose legal designation was directors. Their appointment and conduct would be determinative of Corsica's future, and were therefore of the highest importance.
In a pure democracy the voters assemble to deliberate and record their decisions. Such were the local district meetings in Corsica. These chose the representatives to the central constituent assembly, which was to meet at Orezza on September ninth, 1790. Joseph Buonaparte and Fesch were among the members sent from Ajaccio. The healing waters which Napoleon wished to quaff at Orezza were the influence of the debates. Although he could not be a member of the assembly on account of his youth, he was determined to be present. The three relatives traveled from their home in company, Joseph enchanted by the scenery, Napoleon studying the strategic points on the way. In order that his presence at Orezza might not unduly affect the course of events, Paoli had delicately chosen as his temporary home the village of Rostino, which was on their route. Here occurred the meeting between the two great Corsicans, the man of ideas and the man of action. No doubt Paoli was anxious to win a family so important and a patriot so ardent. In any case, he invited the three young men to accompany him over the fatal battle-ground of Ponte Nuovo. If it had really been Napoleon's ambition to become the chief of the French National Guard for Corsica, which would now, in all probability, be fully organized, it is very likely that he would have exerted himself to secure the favor of the only man who could fulfil his desire. There is, however, a tradition which tends to show quite the contrary: it is said that after Paoli had pointed out the disposition of his troops for the fatal conflict Napoleon dryly remarked, "The result of these arrangements was just what it was bound to be." Among the Emperor's reminiscences at the close of his life, he recalled this meeting, because Paoli had on that occasion declared him to be a man of ancient mold, like one of Plutarch's heroes.
The constituent assembly at Orezza sat for a month. Its sessions passed almost without any incident of importance except the first appearance of Napoleon as an orator in various public meetings held in connection with its labors. He is said to have been bashful and embarrassed in his beginnings, but, inspirited by each occasion, to have become more fluent, and finally to have won the attention and applause of his hearers. What he said is not known, but he spoke in Italian, and succeeded in his design of being at least a personage in the pregnant events now occurring. Both parties were represented in the proceedings and conclusions of the convention. Corsica was to constitute but a single department. Paoli was elected president of its directory and commander-in-chief of its National Guard, a combination of offices which again made him virtual dictator. He accepted them unwillingly, but the honors of a statue and an annual grant of ten thousand dollars, which were voted at the same time, he absolutely declined. The Paolist party secured the election of Canon Belce as vice-president, of Panatheri as secretary, of Arena as Salicetti's substitute, of Pozzo di Borgo and Gentili as members of the directory. Colonna, one of the delegates to the National Assembly, was a member of the same group. The younger patriots, or Young Corsica, as we should say now, perhaps, were represented by their delegate and leader Salicetti, who was chosen as plenipotentiary in Buttafuoco's place, and by Multedo, Gentili, and Pompei as members of the directory. For the moment, however, Paoli was Corsica, and such petty politics was significant only as indicating the survival of counter-currents. There was some dissent to a vote of censure passed upon the conduct of Buttafuoco and Peretti, but it was insignificant. Pozzo di Borgo and Gentili were chosen to declare at the bar of the National Assembly the devotion of Corsica to its purposes, and to the course of reform as represented by it. They were also to secure, if possible, both the permission to form a departmental National Guard, and the means to pay and arm it.
The choice of Pozzo di Borgo for a mission of such importance in preference to Joseph was a disappointment to the Buonapartes. In fact, not one of the plans concerted by the two brothers succeeded. Joseph sustained the pretensions of Ajaccio to be capital of the island, but the honor was awarded to Bastia. He was not elected a member of the general directory, though he succeeded in being made a member for Ajaccio in the district directory. Whether to work off his ill humor, or from far-seeing purpose, Napoleon used the hours not spent in wire-pulling and listening to the proceedings of the assembly for making a series of excursions which were a virtual canvass of the neighborhood. The houses of the poorest were his resort; partly by his inborn power of pleasing, partly by diplomacy, he won their hearts and learned their inmost feelings. His purse, which was for the moment full, was open for their gratification in a way which moved them deeply. For years target practice had been forbidden, as giving dangerous skill in the use of arms. Liberty having returned, Napoleon reorganized many of the old rural festivals in which contests of that nature had been the chief feature, offering prizes from his own means for the best marksmen among the youth. His success in feeling the pulse of public opinion was so great that he never forgot the lesson. Not long afterward, in the neighborhood of Valence,—in fact, to the latest times,—he courted the society of the lowly, and established, when possible, a certain intimacy with them. This gave him popularity, while at the same time it enabled him to obtain the most valuable indications of the general temper.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XI.
Traits of Character.
Literary Work — The Lyons Prize — Essay on Happiness — Thwarted Ambition — The Corsican Patriots — The Brothers Napoleon and Louis — Studies in Politics — Reorganization of the Army — The Change in Public Opinion — A New Leave of Absence — Napoleon Again at Auxonne — Napoleon as a Teacher — Further Literary Efforts — The Sentimental Journey — His Attitude Toward Religion.
1791.
On his return to Ajaccio, the rising agitator continued as before to frequent his club. The action of the convention at Orezza in displacing Buttafuoco had inflamed the young politicians still more against the renegade. This effect was further heightened when it was known that, at the reception of their delegates by the National Assembly, the greater council had, under Mirabeau's leadership, virtually taken the same position regarding both him and his colleague. Napoleon had written, probably in the previous year, a notorious diatribe against Buttafuoco in the form of a letter to its object and the very night on which the news from Paris was received, he seized the opportunity to read it before the club at Ajaccio. The paper, as now in existence, is pompously dated January twenty-third, 1791, from "my summer house of Milleli." This was the retreat on one of the little family properties, to which reference has been made. There in the rocks was a grotto known familiarly by that name; Napoleon had improved and beautified the spot, using it, as he did his garden at Brienne, for contemplation and quiet study. Although the letter to Matteo Buttafuoco has been often printed, and was its author's first successful effort in writing, much emphasis should not be laid on it except in noting the better power to express tumultuous feeling, and in marking the implications which show an expansion of character. Insubordinate to France it certainly is, and intemperate; turgid, too, as any youth of twenty could well make it. No doubt, also, it was intended to secure notoriety for the writer. It makes clear the thorough apprehension its author had as to the radical character of the Revolution. It is his final and public renunciation of the royalist principles of Charles de Buonaparte. It contains also the last profession of morality which a youth is not ashamed to make before the cynicism of his own life becomes too evident for the castigation of selfishness and insincerity in others. Its substance is a just reproach to a selfish trimmer; the froth and scum are characteristic rather of the time and the circumstances than of the personality behind them. There is no further mention of a difference between the destinies of France and Corsica. To compare the pamphlet with even the poorest work of Rousseau, as has often been done, is absurd; to vilify it as ineffective trash is equally so.