d have been less
painful to me than an active life of six months in the midst of men and
public affairs, with a certainty of not succeeding in my undertaking.

I thought of an expedient which seemed proper to obviate every
difficulty. Pursued by the underhand dealings of my secret persecutors
to every place in which I took refuge, and seeing no other except Corsica
where I could in my old days hope for the repose I had until then been
everywhere deprived of, I resolved to go there with the directions of M.
Buttafuoco as soon as this was possible, but to live there in
tranquillity; renouncing, in appearance, everything relative to
legislation, and, in some measure, to make my hosts a return for their
hospitality, to confine myself to writing in the country the history of
the Corsicans, with a reserve in my own mind of the intention of secretly
acquiring the necessary information to become more useful to them should
I see a probability of success. In this manner, by not entering into an
engagement, I hoped to be enabled better to meditate in secret and more
at my ease, a plan which might be useful to their purpose, and this
without much breaking in upon my dearly beloved solitude, or submitting
to a kind of life which I had ever found insupportable.

But the journey was not, in my situation, a thing so easy to get over.
According to what M. Dastier had told me of Corsica, I could not expect
to find there the most simple conveniences of life, except such as I
should take with me; linen, clothes, plate, kitchen furniture, and books,
all were to be conveyed thither. To get there myself with my
gouvernante, I had the Alps to cross, and in a journey of two hundred
leagues to drag after me all my baggage; I had also to pass through the
states of several sovereigns, and according to the example set to all
Europe, I had, after what had befallen me, naturally to expect to find
obstacles in every quarter, and that each sovereign would think he did
himself honor by overwhelming me with some new insult, and violating in
my person all the rights of persons and humanity. The immense expense,
fatigue, and risk of such a journey made a previous consideration of
them, and weighing every difficulty, the first step necessary. The idea
of being alone, and, at my age, without resource, far removed from all my
acquaintance, and at the mercy of these semi-barbarous and ferocious
people, such as M. Dastier had described them to me, was suff