s etoilles bleu, les ombrements et la
couronne jaune!_" Translated as literally as such doubtful language
and construction can be, this signifies: "A count's coronet, the
escutcheon with two bends sinister and two stars, bearing the letters
B. P., which signify Buonaparte, the field of the arms red, the bends
and stars blue, the letters and coronet yellow!" In heraldic parlance
this would be: Gules, two bends sinister between two estoiles azure
charged with B. P. for Buona Parte, or; surmounted by a count's
coronet of the last. In 1759 the same sovereign granted further the
title of patrician. Charles, the son of Joseph, received a similar
grant from the Archbishop of Pisa in 1769. These facts have a
substantial historical value, since by reason of them the family was
duly and justly recognized as noble in 1771 by the French authorities,
and as a consequence, eight years later, the most illustrious scion
of the stem became, as a recognized aristocrat, the ward of a France
which was still monarchical. Reading between the lines of such a
narrative, it appears as if the short-lived family of Corsican lawyers
had some difficulty in preserving an influence proportionate to their
descent, and therefore sought to draw all the strength they could from
a bygone grandeur, easily forgotten by their neighbors in their
moderate circumstances at a later day. Still later, when all ci-devant
aristocrats were suspects in France, and when the taint of nobility
sufficed to destroy those on whom it rested, Napoleon denied his
quality: the usual inquest as to veracity was not made and he went
free. This escape he owed partly to the station he had reached, partly
to the fact that his family claims had been based on birth so obscure
at the time as to subject the claimants to good-natured raillery.

No task had lain nearer to Paoli's heart than to unite in one nation
the two factions into which he found his people divided. Accordingly,
when Carlo Maria di Buonaparte, the single stem on which the
consequential lowland family depended for continuance, appeared at
Corte to pursue his studies, the stranger was received with flattering
kindness, and probably, as one account has it, was appointed to a post
of emolument and honor as Paoli's private secretary. The new
patrician, according to a custom common among Corsicans of his class,
determined to take his degree at Pisa, and in November, 1769, he was
made doctor of laws by that university. Many pl