Buonaparte and Revolution in Corsica.
Napoleon's Studies Continued at Auxonne -- Another Illness
and a Furlough -- His Scheme of Corsican Liberation -- His
Appearance at Twenty -- His Attainments and Character -- His
Shifty Conduct -- The Homeward Journey -- New Parties in
Corsica -- Salicetti and the Nationalists -- Napoleon
Becomes a Political Agitator and Leader of the Radicals --
The National Assembly Incorporates Corsica with France and
Grants Amnesty to Paoli -- Momentary Joy of the Corsican
Patriots -- The French Assembly Ridicules Genoa's Protest --
Napoleon's Plan for Corsican Administration.
[Sidenote: 1789-90.]
Such were the events taking place in the great world while Buonaparte
was at Auxonne. That town, as had been expected, was most uneasy, and
on July nineteenth, 1789, there was an actual outbreak of violence,
directed there, as elsewhere, against the tax-receivers. The riot was
easily suppressed, and for some weeks yet, the regular round of
studious monotony in the young lieutenant's life was not disturbed
except as his poverty made his asceticism more rigorous. "I have no
other resource but work," he wrote to his mother; "I dress but once in
eight days [Sunday parade?]; I sleep but little since my illness; it
is incredible. I retire at ten, and rise at four in the morning. I
take but one meal a day, at three; that is good for my health."
More bad news came from Corsica. The starving patriot fell seriously
ill, and for a time his life hung in the balance. On August eighth he
was at last sufficiently restored to travel, and applied for a
six-months' furlough, to begin immediately. Under the regulations, in
spite of his previous leaves and irregularities, he was this year
entitled to such a vacation, but not before October. His plea that the
winter was unfavorable for the voyage to Corsica was characteristic,
for it was neither altogether true nor altogether false. He was
feverish and ill, excited by news of turmoils at home, and wished to
be on the scene of action; this would have been a true and sufficient
ground for his request. It was likewise true, however, that his chance
for a smooth passage was better in August than in October, and this
evident fact, though probably irrelevant, might move the authorities.
Their answer was favorable, and on September sixteenth he left
Auxonne.
In the interval occurred a mutiny in the regiment. The pay of the men
was far in arrears, and they demanded a division of the surplus which
had accumulated from the various regimental grants, and which was
managed by the officers for the benefit of their own mess. The
officers were compelled to yield, so far had revolutionary license
supplanted royal and military authority. Of course a general orgy
followed. It seems to have been during these days that the scheme of
Corsican liberation which brought him finally into the field of
politics took shape in Napoleon's mind. Fesch had returned to Corsica,
and had long kept his nephew thoroughly informed of the situation. By
the anarchy prevailing all about him in France, and beginning to
prevail in Corsica, his eyes were opened to the possibilities of the
Revolution for one who knew how to take advantage of the changed
order.
The appearance of Buonaparte in his twentieth year was not in general
noteworthy. His head was shapely, but not uncommon in size, although
disproportionate to the frame which bore it. His forehead was wide and
of medium height; on each side long chestnut hair--lanky as we may
suppose from his own account of his personal habits--fell in stiff,
flat locks over his lean cheeks. His eyes were large, and in their
steel-blue irises, lurking under deep-arched and projecting brows, was
a penetrating quality which veiled the mind within. The nose was
straight and shapely, the mouth large, the lips full and sensuous,
although the powerful projecting chin diminished somewhat the true
effect of the lower one. His complexion was sallow. The frame of his
body was in general small and fine, particularly his hands and feet;
but his deep chest and short neck were huge. This lack of proportion
did not, however, interfere with his gait, which was firm and steady.
The student of character would have declared the stripling to be
self-reliant and secretive; ambitious and calculating; masterful, but
kindly. In an age when phrenology was a mania, its masters found in
his cranium the organs of what they called imagination and causality,
of individuality, comparison, and locality--by which jargon they meant
to say that he had a strong power of imaging and of inductive
reasoning, a knowledge of men, of places, and of things.
The life of the young officer had thus far been so commonplace as to
awaken little expectation for his future. Poor as he was, and careful
of his slim resources, he had, like the men of his class, indulged his
passions to a certain degree; but he had not been riotous in his
living, and he had so far not a debt in the world. What his education
and reading were makes clear that he could have known nothing with a
scholar's comprehensive thoroughness except the essentials of his
profession. But he could master details as no man before or since; he
had a vast fund of information, and a historic outline drawn in fair
proportion and powerful strokes. His philosophy was meager, but he
knew the principles of Rousseau and Raynal thoroughly. His conception
of politics and men was not scientific, but it was clear and
practical. The trade of arms had not been to his taste. He heartily
disliked routine, and despised the petty duties of his rank. His
profession, however, was a means to an end; of any mastery of strategy
or tactics or even interest in them he had as yet given no sign, but
he was absorbed in contemplating and analyzing the exploits of the
great world-conquerors. In particular his mind was dazzled by the
splendors of the Orient as the only field on which an Alexander could
have displayed himself, and he knew what but a few great minds have
grasped, that the interchange of relations between the East and the
West had been the life of the world. The greatness of England he
understood to be largely due to her bestriding the two hemispheres.
Up to this moment he had been a theorist, and might have wasted his
fine powers by further indulgence in dazzling generalizations, as so
many boys do when not called to test their hypotheses by experience.
Henceforward he was removed from this temptation. A plan for an
elective council in Corsica to replace that of the nobles, and for a
local militia, having been matured, he was a cautious and practical
experimenter from the moment he left Auxonne. Thus far he had put into
practice none of his fine thoughts, nor the lessons learned in books.
The family destitution had made him a solicitor of favors, and, but
for the turn in public affairs, he might have continued to be one. His
own inclinations had made him both a good student and a poor officer;
without a field for larger duties, he might have remained as he was.
In Corsica his line of conduct was not changed abruptly: the
possibilities of greater things dawning gradually, the application of
great conceptions already formed, came with the march of events, not
like the sun bursting out from behind a cloud.
Traveling by way of Aix, Napoleon took the unlucky Lucien with him.
This wayward but independent younger brother, making no allowance, as
he tells us in his published memoirs, for the disdain an older boy at
school is supposed to feel for a younger one, blood relative or not,
had been repelled by the cold reception his senior had given him at
Brienne. Having left that school against the advice of the same
would-be mentor, his suit for admission to Aix had been fruitless.
Necessity was driving him homeward, and the two who in after days were
again to be separated were now, for almost the only time in their
lives, companions for a considerable period. Their intercourse made
them no more harmonious in feeling. The only incident of the journey
was a visit to the Abbé Raynal at Marseilles. We would gladly know
something of the talk between the master and the pupil, but we do not.
Napoleon found no change in the circumstances of the Buonaparte
family. The old archdeacon was still living, and for the moment all
except Elisa were at home. On the whole, they were more needy than
ever. The death of their patron, Marbeuf, had been followed by the
final rejection of their long-urged suit, and this fact, combined with
the political opinions of the elder Lucien, was beginning to wean them
from the official clique. There were the same factions as before--the
official party and the patriots. Since the death of Charles de
Buonaparte, the former had been represented at Versailles by
Buttafuoco, Choiseul's unworthy instrument in acquiring the island,
and now, as then, an uninfluential and consequential self-seeker. Its
members were all aristocrats and royalist in politics. The higher
priesthood were of similar mind, and had chosen the Abbé Peretti to
represent them; the parish priests, as in France, were with the
people. Both the higher classes were comparatively small; in spite of
twenty years of peace under French rule, they were both excessively
unpopular, and utterly without any hold on the islanders. They had but
one partizan with an influential name, a son of the old-time patriot
Gaffori, the father-in-law of Buttafuoco. The overwhelming majority of
the natives were little changed in their temper. There were the old,
unswerving patriots who wanted absolute independence, and were now
called Paolists; there were the self-styled patriots, the younger men,
who wanted a protectorate that they might enjoy virtual independence
and secure a career by peace. There was in the harbor towns on the
eastern slope the same submissive, peace-loving temper as of old; in
the west the same fiery, warlike spirit. Corte was the center of
Paoli's power, Calvi was the seat of French influence, Bastia was
radical, Ajaccio was about equally divided between the younger and
older parties, with a strong infusion of official influence.
Both the representatives of the people in the national convention were
of the moderate party; one of them, Salicetti, was a man of ability, a
friend of the Buonapartes, and destined later to influence deeply the
course of their affairs. He and his colleague Colonna were urging on
the National Assembly measures for the local administration of the
island. To this faction, as to the other, it had become clear that if
Corsica was to reap the benefits of the new era it must be by union
under Paoli. All, old and young alike, desired a thorough reform of
their barbarous jurisprudence, and, like all other French subjects, a
free press, free trade, the abolition of all privilege, equality in
taxation, eligibility to office without regard to rank, and the
diminution of monastic revenues for the benefit of education. Nowhere
could such changes be more easily made than in a land just emerging
from barbarism, where old institutions were disappearing and new ones
were still fluid. Paoli himself had come to believe that independence
could more easily be secured from a regenerated France, and with her
help, than by a warfare which might again arouse the ambition of
Genoa.
Buonaparte's natural associates were the younger men--Masseria, son of
a patriot line; Pozzo di Borgo, Peraldi, Cuneo, Ramolini, and others
less influential. The only Corsican with French military training, he
was, in view of uncertainties and probabilities already on the
horizon, a person of considerable consequence. His contribution to the
schemes of the young patriots was significant: it consisted in a
proposal to form a body of local militia for the support of that
central committee which his friends so ardently desired. The plan was
promptly adopted by the associates, the radicals seeing in it a means
to put arms once more into the hands of the people, the others no
doubt having in mind the storming of the Bastille and the possibility
of similar movements in Ajaccio and elsewhere. Buonaparte, the only
trained officer among them, may have dreamed of abandoning the French
service, and of a supreme command in Corsica. Many of the people who
appeared well disposed toward France had from time to time received
permission from the authorities to carry arms, many carried them
secretly and without a license; but proportionately there were so few
in both classes that vigorous or successful armed resistance was in
most places impracticable. The attitude of the department of war at
Paris was regulated by Buttafuoco, and was of course hostile to the
insidious scheme of a local militia. The minister of war would do
nothing but submit the suggestion to the body against whose influence
it was aimed, the hated council of twelve nobles. The stupid sarcasm
of such a step was well-nigh criminal.
Under such instigation the flames of discontent broke out in Corsica.
Paoli's agents were again most active. In many towns the people rose
to attack the citadels or barracks, and to seize the authority. In
Ajaccio Napoleon de Buonaparte promptly asserted himself as the
natural leader. The already existing democratic club was rapidly
organized into the nucleus of a home guard, and recruited in numbers.
But there were none of Paoli's mountaineers to aid the unwarlike
burghers, as there had been in Bastia. Gaffori appeared on the scene,
but neither the magic of his name, the troops that accompanied him,
nor the adverse representations of the council, which he brought with
him, could allay the discontent. He therefore remained for three days
in seclusion, and then departed in secret. On the other hand, the
populace was intimidated, permitting without resistance the rooms of
the club to be closed by the troops, and the town to be put under
martial law. Nothing remained for the agitators but to protest and
disperse. They held a final meeting, therefore, on October
thirty-first, 1789, in one of the churches, and signed an appeal to
the National Assembly, to be presented by Salicetti and Colonna. It
had been written, and was read aloud, by Buonaparte, as he now signed
himself.[19] Some share in its composition was later claimed for
Joseph, but the fiery style, the numerous blunders in grammar and
spelling, the terse thought, and the concise form, are all
characteristic of Napoleon. The right of petition, the recital of
unjust acts, the illegal action of the council, the use of force, the
hollowness of the pretexts under which their request had been
refused, the demand that the troops be withdrawn and redress
granted--all these are crudely but forcibly presented. The document
presages revolution. Under a well-constituted and regular authority,
its writer and signatories would of course have been punished for
insubordination. Even as things were, an officer of the King was
running serious risks by his prominence in connection with it.
[Footnote 19: Printed in Coston, II, 94.]
Discouraging as was the outcome of this movement in Ajaccio, similar
agitations elsewhere were more successful. The men of Isola Rossa,
under Arena, who had just returned from a consultation with Paoli in
England, were entirely successful in seizing the supreme authority; so
were those of Bastia, under Murati, a devoted friend of Paoli. One
untrustworthy authority, a personal enemy of Buonaparte, declares that
the latter, thwarted in his own town, at once went over to Bastia,
then the residence of General de Barrin, the French royalist governor,
and successfully directed the revolt in that place, but there is no
corroborative evidence to this doubtful story.
Simultaneously with these events the National Assembly had been
debating how the position of the King under the new constitution was
to be expressed by his title. Absolutism being ended, he could no
longer be king of France, a style which to men then living implied
ownership. King of the French was selected as the new form; should
they add "and of Navarre"? Salicetti, with consummate diplomacy, had
already warned many of his fellow-delegates of the danger lest England
should intervene in Corsica, and France lose one of her best
recruiting-grounds. To his compatriots he set forth that France was
the best protector, whether they desired partial or complete
independence. He now suggested that if the Assembly thus recognized
the separate identity of the Pyrenean people, they must supplement
their phrase still further by the words "and of Corsica"; for it had
been only nominally, and as a pledge, that Genoa in 1768 had put
France in control. At this stage of the debate, Volney presented a
number of formal demands from the Corsican patriots asking that the
position of their country be defined. One of these papers certainly
came from Bastia; among them also was probably the document which had
been executed at Ajaccio. This was the culmination of the skilful
revolutionary agitation which had been started and directed by
Masseria under Paoli's guidance. The anomalous position of both
Corsica and Navarre was clearly depicted in the mere presentation of
such petitions. "If the Navarrese are not French, what have we to do
with them, or they with us?" said Mirabeau. The argument was as
unanswerable for one land as for the other, and both were incorporated
in the realm: Corsica on November thirtieth, by a proposition of
Salicetti's, who was apparently unwilling, but who posed as one under
imperative necessity. In reality he had reached the goal for which he
had long been striving. Dumouriez, later so renowned as a general, and
Mirabeau, the great statesman and orator, had both been members of the
French army of occupation which reduced Corsica to submission. The
latter now recalled his misdeed with sorrow and shame in an
impassioned plea for amnesty to all political offenders, including
Paoli. There was bitter opposition, but the great orator prevailed.
The news was received in Corsica with every manifestation of joy;
bonfires were lighted, and Te Deums were sung in the churches. Paoli
to rejoin his own again! What more could disinterested patriots
desire? Corsica a province of France! How could her aspiring youth
secure a wider field for the exercise of their powers, and the
attainment of ambitious ends? The desires of both parties were
temporarily fulfilled. The names of Mirabeau, Salicetti, and Volney
were shouted with acclaim, those of Buttafuoco and Peretti with
reprobation. The regular troops were withdrawn from Ajaccio; the
ascendancy of the liberals was complete.
Then feeble Genoa was heard once more. She had pledged the
sovereignty, not sold it; had yielded its exercise, and not the thing
itself; France might administer the government as she chose, but
annexation was another matter. She appealed to the fairness of the
King and the National Assembly to safeguard her treaty rights. Her
tone was querulous, her words without force. In the Assembly the
protest was but fuel to the fire. On January twenty-first, 1790,
occurred an animated debate in which the matter was fully considered.
The discussion was notable, as indicating the temper of parties and
the nature of their action at that stage of the Revolution. Mirabeau
as ever was the leader. He and his friends were scornful not only
because of Genoa's temerity in seeming still to claim what France had
conquered, but of her conception that mere paper contracts were
binding where principles of public law were concerned! The opposition
mildly but firmly recalled the existence of other nations than France,
and suggested the consequences of international bad faith. The
conclusion of the matter was the adoption of a cunning and insolent
combination of two propositions, one made by each side, "to lay the
request on the table, or to explain that there is no occasion for its
consideration." The incident is otherwise important only in the light
of Napoleon's future dealings with the Italian commonwealth.
The situation was now most delicate, as far as Buonaparte was
concerned. His suggestion of a local militia contemplated the
extension of the revolutionary movement to Corsica. His appeal to the
National Assembly demanded merely the right to do what one French city
or district after another had done: to establish local authority, to
form a National Guard, and to unfurl the red, white, and blue. There
was nothing in it about the incorporation of Corsica in France; that
had come to pass through the insurgents of Bastia, who had been
organized by Paoli, inspired by the attempt at Ajaccio, and guided at
last by Salicetti. A little later Buonaparte took pains to set forth
how much better, under his plan, would have been the situation of
Corsican affairs if, with their guard organized and their colors
mounted, they could have recalled Paoli, and have awaited the event
with power either to reject such propositions as the royalists, if
successful, would have made, or to accept the conclusions of the
French Assembly with proper self-respect, and not on compulsion.
Hitherto he had lost no opportunity to express his hatred of France;
it is possible that he had planned the virtual independence of
Corsica, with himself as the liberator, or at least as Paoli's
Sampiero. The reservations of his Ajaccio document, and the bitterness
of his feelings, are not, however, sufficient proof of such a
presumption. But the incorporation had taken place, Corsica was a
portion of France, and everybody was wild with delight.