from all parts of Corsica; and
Buonaparte draws up a declaration, vindicating Paoli's conduct and
begging the French Convention to revoke its decree.[19] Again, one
cannot but suspect that this declaration was intended mainly, if not
solely, for local consumption. In any case, it failed to cool the
resentment of the populace; and the partisans of France soon came to
blows with the Paolists.

Salicetti and Buonaparte now plan by various artifices to gain the
citadel of Ajaccio from the Paolists, but guile is three times foiled
by guile equally astute. Failing here, the young captain seeks to
communicate with the French commissioners at Bastia. He sets out
secretly, with a trusty shepherd as companion, to cross the island:
but at the village of Bocognano he is recognized and imprisoned by the
partisans of Paoli. Some of the villagers, however, retain their old
affection to the Buonaparte family, which here has an ancestral
estate, and secretly set him free. He returns to Ajaccio, only to find
an order for his arrest issued by the Corsican patriots. This time he
escapes by timely concealment in the grotto of a friend's garden; and
from the grounds of another family connection he finally glides away
in a vessel to a point of safety, whence he reaches Bastia.

Still, though a fugitive, he persists in believing that Ajaccio is
French at heart, and urges the sending of a liberating force. The
French commissioners agree, and the expedition sails--only to meet
with utter failure. Ajaccio, as one man, repels the partisans of
France; and, a gale of wind springing up, Buonaparte and his men
regain their boats with the utmost difficulty. At a place hard by, he
finds his mother, uncle, brothers and sisters. Madame Buonaparte, with
the extraordinary tenacity of will that characterized her famous son,
had wished to defend her house at Ajaccio against the hostile
populace; but, yielding to the urgent warnings of friends, finally
fled to the nearest place of safety, and left the house to the fury of
the populace, by whom it was nearly wrecked.

For a brief space Buonaparte clung to the hope of regaining Corsica
for the Republic, but now only by the aid of French troops. For the
islanders, stung by the demand of the French Convention that Paoli
should go to Paris, had rallied to the dictator's side; and the aged
chief made overtures to England for alliance. The partisans of France,
now menaced by England's naval power, were in an utte