Buonaparte also drew up a memoir
on the oath which was required from priests.

When Paoli first received news of the amnesty granted at the instance
of Mirabeau, and of the action taken by the French Assembly, which had
made Corsica a French department, he was delighted and deeply moved.
His noble instincts told him at once that he could no longer live in
the enjoyment of an English pension or even in England; for he was
convinced that his country would eventually reach a more perfect
autonomy under France than under the wing of any other power, and that
as a patriot he must not fail even in appearance to maintain that
position. But he also felt that his return to Corsica would endanger
the success of this policy; the ardent mountaineers would demand more
extreme measures for complete independence than he could take; the
lowlanders would be angry at the attitude of sympathy with his old
friends which he must assume. In a spirit of self-sacrifice,
therefore, he made ready to exchange his comfortable exile for one
more uncongenial and of course more bitter.

But the National Assembly, with less insight, desired nothing so much
as his presence in the new French department. He was growing old, and
yielded against his better judgment to the united solicitation of
French interest and of Corsican impolicy. Passing through France, he
was detained for over two months by the ovations forced upon him. In
Paris the King urged him to accept honors of every kind; but they were
firmly refused: the reception, however, which the Assembly gave him in
the name of liberty, he declared to be the proudest occasion of his
life. At Lyons the populace crowded the streets to cheer him, and
delegations from the chief towns of his native island met him to
solicit for each of their respective cities the honor of his landing.
On July fourteenth, 1790, after twenty-one years of exile, the now
aged hero set foot on Corsican land at Maginajo, near Capo Corso. His
first act was to kneel and kiss the soil. The nearest town was Bastia,
the revolutionary capital. There and elsewhere the rejoicings were
general, and the ceremonies were such as only the warm hearts and
willing hands of a primitive Italian people could devise and perform.
Not one true Corsican but must "see and hear and touch him." But in
less than a month his conduct was, as he had foreseen, so
misrepresented by friend and foe alike, that it was necessary to
defend him in Paris against the