Note 2 — Chapter XLI · OF NATIONS WITH REGARD TO LOVE. FRANCE

Memoirs of M. Realier-Dumas. Corsica, which, as regards its population of one hundred and eighty thousand souls, would not form a half of most French Departments, has produced in modern times Salliceti, Pozzo di Borgo, General Sebastiani, Cervioni, Abbatucci, Lucien and Napoleon Bonaparte and Aréna. The Département du Nord, with its nine hundred thousand inhabitants, is far from being able to show a similar list. The reason is that in Corsica anyone, on leaving his house, may be greeted by a bullet; and the Corsican, instead of submitting like a good Christian, tries to defend himself and still more to be revenged. That is the way spirits like Napoleon are forged. It's a long cry from such surroundings to a palace with its lords-in-waiting and chamberlains, and a Fénelon obliged to find reasons for his respect to His Royal Highness, when speaking to H. R. H. himself, aged twelve years. See the works of that great writer.