of these proceedings soon reached the friends of Paoli, and Buonaparte
was summoned to report immediately at Corte. Such was the intensity of
popular bitterness against him in Ajaccio for his desertion of Paoli
that after a series of narrow escapes from arrest he was compelled to
flee in disguise and by water to Bastia, which he reached on May
tenth, 1793. Thwarted in their efforts to seize Napoleon, the hostile
party vented its rage on the rest of the family, hunting the mother
and children from their town house, which was pillaged and burned,
first to Milleli, then through jungle and over hilltops to the lonely
tower of Capitello near the sea.

[Footnote 33: Both these men were generously remembered
in the secret codicils of Napoleon's will.]

A desire for revenge on his Corsican persecutors would now give an
additional stimulus to Buonaparte, and still another device to secure
the passionately desired citadel of Ajaccio was proposed by him to the
commissioners of the Convention, and adopted by them. The remnants of
a Swiss regiment stationed near by were to be marched into the city,
as if for embarkment; several French war vessels from the harbor of
St. Florent, including one frigate, with troops, munitions, and
artillery on board, were to appear unexpectedly before the city, land
their men and guns, and then, with the help of the Switzers and such
of the citizens as espoused the French cause, were to overawe the town
and seize the citadel. Corsican affairs had now reached a crisis, for
this was a virtual declaration of war. Paoli so understood it, and
measures of mutual defiance were at once taken by both sides. The
French commissioners formally deposed the officials who sympathized
with Paoli; they, in turn, took steps to increase the garrison of
Ajaccio, and to strengthen the popular sentiment in their favor.

On receipt of the news that he had been summoned to Paris and that
hostile commissioners had been sent to take his place, Paoli had
immediately forwarded, by the hands of two friendly representatives,
the temperate letter in which he had declared his loyalty to France.
In it he had offered to resign and leave Corsica. His messengers were
seized and temporarily detained, but in the end they reached Paris,
and were kindly received. On May twenty-ninth they appeared on the
floor of the Convention, and won their cause. On June fifth the former
decree was revoked, and two days later