he fever was still lingering in his
system. What the degree of his illness was we cannot tell. It may have
unfitted him for active service with his regiment; it did not disable
him from pursuing his occupations in writing and political agitation.
His request was granted on May twentieth. The history of Corsica was
now finally revised, and the new dedication completed. This, with a
letter and some chapters of the book, was forwarded to Raynal,
probably by post. Joseph, who was one of the delegates to meet Paoli,
would pass through Marseilles, wrote Napoleon to the abbe, and would
hand him the rest if he should so desire. The text of the unlucky book
was not materially altered. Its theory appears always to have been
that history is but a succession of great names, and the story,
therefore, is more a biographical record than a connected narrative.
The dedication, however, was a new step in the painful progress of
more accurate thinking and better expression; the additions to the
volume contained, amid many immaturities and platitudes, some ripe and
clever thought. Buonaparte's passion for his bantling was once more
the ardor of a misdirected genius unsullied by the desire for money,
which had played a temporary part.

We know nothing definite of his pecuniary affairs, but somehow or
other his fortunes must have mended. There is no other explanation of
his numerous and costly journeys, and we hear that for a time he had
money in his purse. In the will which he dictated at St. Helena is a
bequest of one hundred thousand francs to the children of his friend
who was the first mayor of Ajaccio by the popular will. It is not
unlikely that the legacy was a grateful souvenir of advances made
about this time. There is another possible explanation. The club of
Ajaccio had chosen a delegation, of which Joseph Buonaparte was a
member, to bring Paoli home from France. To meet its expenses, the
municipality had forced the authorities of the priests' seminary to
open their strong box and to hand over upward of two thousand francs.
Napoleon may have shared Joseph's portion. We should be reminded in
such a stroke, but with a difference, to be sure, of what happened
when, a few years later, the hungry and ragged soldiers of the
Republic were led into the fat plains of Lombardy.

The contemptuous attitude of the Ajaccio liberals toward the religion
of Rome seriously alienated the superstitious populace from them.
Buonaparte was once attack