Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XIII

In a letter written about the beginning of July, probably to Lucien or possibly to Joseph, and evidently intended to be read in the Jacobin Club of Ajaccio, there are clear indications of its writer's temper. He speaks with judicious calmness of the project for educational reform; of Lafayette's appearance before the Assembly, which had pronounced the country in danger and was now sitting in permanence, as perhaps necessary to prevent its taking an extreme and dangerous course; of the French as no longer deserving the pains men took for them, since they were a people old and without continuity or coherence;[27] of their leaders as poor creatures engaged on low plots; and of the damper which such a spectacle puts on ambition. Clearly the lesson of moderation which he inculcates is for the first time sincerely given. The preacher, according to his own judgment for the time being, is no Frenchman, no demagogue, nothing but a simple Corsican anxious to live far from the madness of mobs and the emptiness of so-called glory.