Note Back to Main Text — Chapter IX

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use of force, the hollowness of the pretexts under which their request had been refused, the demand that the troops be withdrawn and redress granted—all these are crudely but forcibly presented.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.