ition.
But though faithful to the end, he was always erratic and troublesome;
and in an attack of morbid chagrin he came to a violent end in 1813.
The other comrade was but a boy of twenty, the son of an officer who,
though of the lower nobility, was a convinced revolutionary. The boys
had met several years earlier at Dijon and again as young men at
Toulon, where the friendship was knitted which grew closer and closer
for twenty years. At Wagram, Marmont became a marshal. Already he had
acquired habits of luxurious ease and the doubtful fortunes of his
Emperor exasperated him into critical impatience. He so magnified his
own importance that at last he deserted. The labored memoirs he wrote
are the apology for his life and for his treachery. Though without
great genius, he was an able man and an industrious recorder of
valuable impressions. Not one of the three accomplished anything
during the Corsican expedition; their common humiliation probably
commended both of his junior comrades to Buonaparte's tenderness, and
thereafter both enjoyed much of his confidence, especially Marmont, in
whom it was utterly misplaced.

CHAPTER XX.

The End of Apprenticeship.

The English Conquest of Corsica -- Effects in Italy -- The
Buonapartes at Toulon -- Napoleon Thwarted Again --
Departure for Paris -- His Character Determined -- His
Capacities -- Reaction From the "Terror" -- Resolutions of
the Convention -- Parties in France -- Their Lack of
Experience -- A New Constitution -- Different Views of Its
Value.

[Sidenote: 1795.]

The turmoils of civil war in France had now left Corsica to her own
pursuits for many months. Her internal affairs had gone from bad to
worse, and Paoli, unable to control his fierce and wilful people, had
found himself helpless. Compelled to seek the support of some strong
foreign power, he had instinctively turned to England, and the English
fleet, driven from Toulon, was finally free to help him. On February
seventeenth, 1794, it entered the fine harbor of St. Florent, and
captured the town without an effort. Establishing a depot which thus
separated the two remaining centers of French influence, Calvi and
Bastia, the English admiral next laid siege to the latter. The place
made a gallant defense, holding out for over three months, until on
May twenty-second Captain Horatio Nelson, who had virtually controlled
operations for eighty-eight days continuously,--