Adam Zamoyski - Napoleon - The Man Behind the Myth

Paoli issued a call to arms, but his was a lost cause, though the men of the uplands put up a stiff resistance, inflicting heavy casualties on the French. Carlo was at Paoli’s side during the decisive engagement at Ponte-Novo on 8 May 1769, but did not take part in the fighting; Paoli hovered some three kilometres away as his men were routed by a superior French force under the comte de Vaux. Paoli fled over the mountains to Porto Vecchio, whence two British frigates took him and a handful of supporters off to exile in England.8

Carlo Buonaparte was not among them. Family legend has it that Paoli insisted he stay behind in Corsica, but it is more likely that Carlo made the decision himself. The island had never entirely submitted to any regime, and among its inhabitants family came a long way before loyalty to any cause. While Carlo and his uncle Napoleone had served Paoli, his other uncle Luciano had remained in French-held Ajaccio, where he had sworn fealty to the King of France, as had most of the notables of the coastal cities. Unperturbed by the cause of independence, Letizia was writing to her grandfather Giuseppe Maria Pietrasanta in French-held Bastia asking him to send her bales of Lyon silk and new dresses fit for a noblewoman.9

‘I was a good patriot and a Paolist in my heart as long as the national government lasted,’ Carlo wrote. ‘But this government has ceased to exist. We have become French. Eviva il Re e suo governo .’ Having submitted to Vaux, he went back to Ajaccio. On the way home over the mountains, Carlo almost lost his wife and the child she was carrying in her womb when her mule stumbled in the torrent of the river Liamone.10

The child was born on the night of 15 August 1769, and named after his great-uncle Napoleone, who had died two years before. The name did not figure in the liturgical calendar as belonging to a saint, but it was not unknown in Genoa and Corsica, where it was sometimes spelt Nabullione or even Lapullione, and had been given to several members of the family in the past. He would not be christened until July 1771, by which time his father had repositioned himself with considerable skill.11

Since the legal profession was the key to obtaining civic office under any government, Carlo set off for Pisa to obtain the necessary qualifications. ‘One can have no idea of the facility with which the title of doctor is granted here,’ wrote a contemporary French traveller of the university of Pisa. ‘Everyone in the locality is one, even the inn-keepers and post-masters.’ Carlo presented a hastily-written thesis for which he obtained a doctorate, and within six weeks he was back in Ajaccio, where he found no shortage of work.12

With a population of 3,907 according to the French census of 1770, Ajaccio was the second largest city in Corsica, but it was in essence a sleepy, smelly village. When Balzac visited it more than half a century later he was stunned by the ‘unbelievable indolence’ pervading the place, with the menfolk wandering about all day smoking. It consisted of a minuscule citadel stuck out on the promontory shielding the port, and behind it a walled town not more than 250 metres across in any direction, clustered around three radiating streets intersected by another three narrower ones, with an attractive promenade and square between the two named the Olmo after a large elm that grew on it. Within the walls there was a cathedral whose roof fell in in 1771 and would not be repaired for twenty years, and which was unusable in summer due to the stink emanating from the dead buried under its floor. There was also a Jesuit college and a governor’s residence, tucked into an assortment of mean-looking townhouses ranged along narrow streets bordered by small shops whose trade spilled out onto them. The smell of fish drifting over from the harbour mingled with that of the hides put out to dry by the butchers cutting up carcases in the street and the stench from the moat of the citadel. Outside the city walls stood a convent, a hospital, a military barracks and a seminary, and, along the road leading up to the town from the north, an agglomeration of dwellings known as the Borgo, where the poorer inhabitants lived.13

The city was dominated by families such as the Ponte, Pozzo di Borgo, Bacciochi and the Peraldi, and an oligarchy of notaries, lawyers and clerics with ‘noble’ connections such as the Buonaparte. This society was supplemented by the magistrates, judge, officers and other officials of the French administration. The houses within the city walls were mostly divided by multiple ownership like the Buonaparte home, and, since all their inhabitants were related to each other by blood or marriage, the whole area was a familial congeries connected by tangled ties. Ajaccio’s lawyers, Carlo among them, thrived on the squabbles generated by the resulting disputes over restricted space and scant resources. Carlo himself would be engaged for many years in a legal battle over some used wine-making equipment and a few leaky barrels. In one case, he pleaded for a client over one kerchief. There was plenty of work, but it was not remunerative enough or commensurate with Carlo’s ambitions. On the basis of his doctorate, in 1771 he obtained a minor post at the court of Ajaccio, but he was aiming higher.14

He had wasted no time in seeking the favour of the French military governor of the south-west of the island, the comte de Narbonne. On being fobbed off, he offered his services to Narbonne’s superior in Bastia. Charles Louis, comte de Marbeuf, needed a party of supporters among the notables of Ajaccio, and the Buonaparte were ideally placed to provide it. Their collaboration developed so well that Carlo felt bold enough to invite Marbeuf to stand godparent at the christening of his son Napoleone on 21 July 1771, and Marbeuf agreed. In the event Marbeuf was prevented from attending, so he sent a Genoese patrician and later royal lieutenant at Ajaccio, Lorenzo Giubega, to act as proxy. Marbeuf did come to Ajaccio less than a month later for the festivities of the feast of the Assumption and the little Napoleone’s second birthday on 15 August. He was so struck by the beauty of the child’s mother that he insisted she take his arm on the afternoon passegiata up and down the Olmo, and after walking her home he stayed there until one in the morning. Carlo’s ambitions soared.15

France was interested in Corsica both for its strategic importance and for its economic potential. It was accorded the status of a semi-autonomous province within the kingdom, and the French authorities set about organising it. A survey revealed to them the idiosyncratic nature of Corsican society, with its broad base of land tenure and plethora of hunting, gathering and fishing rights and obligations. These would hinder rationalisation, while the egalitarianism that had so enchanted Boswell and Rousseau impeded not only progress but the establishment of a hierarchy necessary for successful political control. One of the first actions of the new French regime was to correct this by recognising as noble the most prominent families. In large measure thanks to the usefulness of Carlo and the charms of his wife, the Buonaparte were included. ‘Ajaccio is struck with astonishment and filled with jealousy by the news,’ Carlo wrote to his wife’s grandfather.16

The connection with Marbeuf was invaluable. In 1772 Carlo was elected to represent Ajaccio in the newly established Assembly of Corsican Estates only because Marbeuf intervened to have his successful rival’s election annulled. The governor’s direct intercession also helped resolve a lengthy court battle between the Buonaparte and their Ornano cousins over a dowry that included a significant part of the house in which they lived. By way of a series of buy-outs, swaps and court cases Carlo would extend his possession over the years against a backdrop of running battles between the various members of the family involving the use of the staircase and other areas where interests clashed. These occasionally flared into violence, and inevitably ended up in court, where the knowledge that Carlo had the backing of Marbeuf counted.17