fused two years before at the hands of Louis XVI. With the men and
methods of the Terror, however, he was wholly out of sympathy. Suspected
of throwing obstacles in the way of the expedition despatched in 1793
against Sardinia, he was summoned, with the procurator-general Pozzo di
Borgo, to the bar of the Convention. Paoli now openly defied the
Convention by summoning the representatives of the communes to meet in
diet at Corte on the 27th of May. To the remonstrances of Saliceti, who
attended the meeting, he replied that he was rebelling, not against
France, but against the dominant faction of whose actions the majority
of Frenchmen disapproved. Saliceti thereupon hurried to Paris, and on
his motion Paoli and his sympathizers were declared by the Convention
_hors la loi_ (June 26).

British occupation, 1794-1796.

Paoli had already made up his mind to raise the standard of revolt
against France. But though the _consulta_ at Corte elected him
president, Corsican opinion was by no means united. Napoleon Bonaparte,
whom Paoli had expected to win over to his views, indignantly rejected
the idea of a breach with France, and the Bonapartes were henceforth
ranked with his enemies. Paoli now appealed for assistance to the
British government, which despatched a considerable force. By the summer
of 1794, after hard fighting, the island was reduced, and in June the
Corsican assembly formally offered the sovereignty to King George III.
The British occupation lasted two years, the island being administered
by Sir Gilbert Elliot. Paoli, whose presence was considered inexpedient,
was invited to return to England, where he remained till his death. In
1796 Bonaparte, after his victorious Italian campaign, sent an
expedition against Corsica. The British, weary of a somewhat thankless
task, made no great resistance, and in October the island was once more
in French hands. It was again occupied by Great Britain for a short time
in 1814, but in the settlement of 1815 was restored to the French crown.
Its history henceforth is part of that of France.

See F. Girolami-Cortona, _Geographie generale de la Corse_ (Ajaccio,
1893); A. Andrei, _A travers la Corse_ (Paris, 1893); Forcioli-Conti,
_Notre Corse_ (Ajaccio, 1897); R. Le Joindre, _La Corse et les Corses_
(Paris, 1904); F. O. Renucci, _Storia di Corsica_ (2 vols., Bastia,
1833), fervidly Corsican, but useful; Antonio Pietro Filippini,
_Istoria di Corsica_ (1st ed., 1594;