arily fulfilled. The names of Mirabeau, Salicetti, and Volney
were shouted with acclaim, those of Buttafuoco and Peretti with
reprobation. The regular troops were withdrawn from Ajaccio; the
ascendancy of the liberals was complete.

Then feeble Genoa was heard once more. She had pledged the
sovereignty, not sold it; had yielded its exercise, and not the thing
itself; France might administer the government as she chose, but
annexation was another matter. She appealed to the fairness of the
King and the National Assembly to safeguard her treaty rights. Her
tone was querulous, her words without force. In the Assembly the
protest was but fuel to the fire. On January twenty-first, 1790,
occurred an animated debate in which the matter was fully considered.
The discussion was notable, as indicating the temper of parties and
the nature of their action at that stage of the Revolution. Mirabeau
as ever was the leader. He and his friends were scornful not only
because of Genoa's temerity in seeming still to claim what France had
conquered, but of her conception that mere paper contracts were
binding where principles of public law were concerned! The opposition
mildly but firmly recalled the existence of other nations than France,
and suggested the consequences of international bad faith. The
conclusion of the matter was the adoption of a cunning and insolent
combination of two propositions, one made by each side, "to lay the
request on the table, or to explain that there is no occasion for its
consideration." The incident is otherwise important only in the light
of Napoleon's future dealings with the Italian commonwealth.

The situation was now most delicate, as far as Buonaparte was
concerned. His suggestion of a local militia contemplated the
extension of the revolutionary movement to Corsica. His appeal to the
National Assembly demanded merely the right to do what one French city
or district after another had done: to establish local authority, to
form a National Guard, and to unfurl the red, white, and blue. There
was nothing in it about the incorporation of Corsica in France; that
had come to pass through the insurgents of Bastia, who had been
organized by Paoli, inspired by the attempt at Ajaccio, and guided at
last by Salicetti. A little later Buonaparte took pains to set forth
how much better, under his plan, would have been the situation of
Corsican affairs if, with their guard organized and their colors
mounted, they c