Adam Zamoyski - Napoleon - The Man Behind the Myth

On 16 August his regiment mutinied. The soldiers confronted their officers demanding they hand over the regimental chest, which they were obliged to do. The soldiers then got drunk and tried to fraternise with the officers, forcing them to drink with them. Napoleone’s thoughts are not recorded, but there can be little doubt as to what they were. When, a few days later, the regiment went on parade to swear a new oath, to the Nation, the King and the Law, he was probably thinking of another nation. His request for leave had been granted, and in the first days of September he left Auxonne for Corsica.23

Napoleone reached Ajaccio at the end of September 1789. Apart from Maria-Anna, who was still at Saint-Cyr, the whole family was there. Joseph had a judicial post in the city, but Lucien, who had abandoned a military career because of poor eyesight and then given a clerical one a try, was idling, along with Louis. Their prospects in France had faded and they were reduced to Corsica once more. Napoleone intended to play a part in the island’s affairs, but the political scene was not quite as he had imagined.

There had been riots in the coastal cities in the wake of events in France, but there was no impetus for revolution, since none of the grievances which motivated it in France resonated in Corsica, where feudal privilege and class differences were not major issues. Here, the conflict was between the separatists and those who had thrown in their lot with France, and between rival clans. In the early summer of 1789 a Corsican assembly had sent four deputies to the Estates General at Versailles: Matteo Buttafocco representing the nobility, the Abbé Peretti the clergy, and the lawyer Cristoforo Saliceti and Captain Pietro Paulo Colonna Cesari the third estate. The only thing uniting them was resentment of the French administration. Even the French loyalists Buttafocco and Peretti wanted the island administered by its inhabitants, meaning their own sort. The representatives of the third estate, Saliceti and Cesari, belonged to a faction describing themselves as ‘patriots’, some of whom wanted greater autonomy or even independence, others integration into France.

The Estates General had transformed itself into a National Assembly, and this would decide Corsica’s future. On 17 June 1789 Saliceti and Cesari appealed to it demanding that Corsica be governed by a committee of locals and the formation of a native civic guard on the model of those which had sprung up all over France. Meanwhile, a rash of opportunistic disturbances covered the island as latent gripes were voiced and scores settled. On 14 August the assembly which had chosen the deputies to the Estates General set up a revolutionary municipal authority in Bastia. The following day the festivities of the Assumption of the Virgin in Ajaccio resulted in the formation of a ‘patriotic committee’ there, with Joseph as secretary (since he was the only one of them who could read and write French). Napoleone assumed that the next step would be the formation of a civic guard, and with another young enthusiast, Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, went about distributing tricolour cockades to be worn as a mark of solidarity with the Revolution in France and encouraging people to form a citizens’ militia.

On 17 October the National Assembly, which had by then transferred from Versailles to Paris, decided against allowing Corsica its own assembly and civic guard, on grounds of cost. Napoleone composed a letter of protest, signed by all the revolutionary activists in Ajaccio. He continued to agitate, and on 30 November his appeal demanding for Corsica the same rights enjoyed by the rest of France was read out to the National Assembly in Paris. It was backed by Saliceti and supported by the revolutionary tribune Mirabeau, and in one of those moments of wild enthusiasm characteristic of the early days of the Revolution, Corsica was integrated into the French nation and all those who had fought against the French were amnestied. Paoli was invited to leave London and come to Paris, where he would be welcomed as a hero before travelling on to Corsica. There were celebrations with the Te Deum sung in the island’s churches, and Napoleone hung a banner on the façade of the Buonaparte house bearing the inscription ‘ Vive la Nation! Vive Paoli! Vive Mirabeau! ’1

The words encapsulated a confusion as to which ‘nation’ Napoleone now associated with. ‘This young officer was brought up at the École Militaire, his sister is at Saint-Cyr, his mother has been showered with benefactions by the government,’ the French commander in Ajaccio wrote to the minister of war in Paris, adding that he should be with his regiment instead of stirring up trouble in Corsica. But Napoleone was not recalled, and the question of his allegiance would be complicated further with the arrival on the island of Paoli.2

The Babbo was preceded by various of his followers returning from exile whose sufferings in the cause endowed them with a sense of self-righteousness that led them to call into question the loyalty of those who, like the Buonaparte, had accommodated themselves to French rule. This made it incumbent on the Buonaparte brothers to demonstrate their devotion to the Corsican cause. They took down a portrait of Marbeuf which hung in their drawing room and hid it, but it was not clear where they stood.3

As Napoleone was writing his violently anti-French history of Corsica at the time, one must assume he still considered himself a Corsican patriot rather than a Frenchman. But given the uncertainties of the situation, he had to hedge his bets and remember that he had a career in the French army. His immediate priority was to secure position and influence. In February 1790 the two brothers agitated for the election of their friend Jean Jérôme Levie as mayor of Ajaccio, and of Joseph to the municipal council (which entailed archdeacon Fesch falsifying his birth certificate to make him of eligible age).4

The next step was to get Joseph elected to the general assembly which was to meet at Orezza to set up an administration for the island. Joseph was successful, and Napoleone accompanied him as they set off on horseback on 12 April, but on arrival they found themselves looked on askance by many of Paoli’s faithful. Napoleone expressed anti-French feelings and wrote an appeal demanding that all Frenchmen be expelled from the island. He befriended Filippo Buonarroti, a revolutionary and supporter of Paoli from Tuscany, and Filippo Masseria, Paoli’s right-hand man who had been sent ahead from London (and was a British agent). He also wrote to his commanding officer asking for an extension of leave, citing health reasons.5

None of this did much to enhance his credibility with Paoli’s henchmen at Corte, but it did affect his standing in Ajaccio, and when the two brothers returned they faced the enmity of the more conservative inhabitants. In the first days of May, while strolling on the Olmo they were attacked by a gang led by a local priest, but were saved by the appearance of a bandit of their acquaintance. They managed to mobilise their supporters in the Borgo, and on 25 June all French officials were expelled from Ajaccio.6

Joseph was one of those selected to meet Paoli on his way from Paris and accompany him back to his native island, where they landed on 14 July 1790. Napoleone and others from Ajaccio met him at Bastia on 4 August, and the two brothers joined some 500 supporters who rode with him on his triumphal progress to Corte.7

The General of the Corsican Nation was sixty-five and marked by twenty-one years of exile in London, during which he had grown to appreciate the merits of monarchy. Although it was the Revolution that gave him back his homeland, he was no revolutionary. On 8 September he opened a congress at Orezza which he packed with his family and supporters. Over the next three weeks this reorganised the administration of the island, giving him unlimited executive power, overall command of the National Guard and a considerable income. This was out of tune with what was being done in Paris, and many of the measures taken were against the law, given that Corsica was now a department of France.