nd he, under authorization obtained in due
time from Paris, granted it. Safe from the charge of desertion thus
far, it was essential for his reputation and for his ambition that
Buonaparte should be elected lieutenant-colonel. Success would enable
him to plead that his first lapse in discipline was due to irregular
orders from his superior, that anyhow he had been an adjutant-major,
and that finally the position of lieutenant-colonel gave him immunity
from punishment, and left him blameless.

He nevertheless was uneasy, and wrote two letters of a curious
character to his friend Sucy, the commissioner-general at Valence. In
the first, written five weeks after the expiration of his leave, he
calmly reports himself, and gives an account of his occupations,
mentioning incidentally that unforeseen circumstances, duties the
dearest and most sacred, had prevented his return. His correspondent
would be so kind as not to mention the letter to the "gentlemen of the
regiment," but the writer would immediately return if his friend in
his unassisted judgment thought best. In the second he plumply
declares that in perilous times the post of a good Corsican is at
home, that therefore he had thought of resigning, but his friends had
arranged the middle course of appointing him adjutant-major in the
volunteers so that he could make his duty as a soldier conform to his
duty as a patriot. Asking for news of what is going on in France, he
says, writing like an outsider, "If _your_ nation loses courage at
this moment, it is done with forever."

It was toward the end of March that the volunteers from the mountains
began to appear in Ajaccio for the election of their officers.
Napoleon had bitter and powerful rivals, but his recent trip had
apparently enabled him to win many friends among the men. While,
therefore, success was possible by that means, there was another
influence almost as powerful--that of three commissioners appointed by
the directory of the island to organize and equip the battalion. These
were Morati, a friend of Peraldi, the Paolist deputy; Quenza, more or
less neutral, and Grimaldi, a devoted partisan of the Buonapartes.
With skilful diplomacy Napoleon agreed that he would not presume to be
a candidate for the office of first lieutenant-colonel, which was
desired by Peretti, a near friend of Paoli, for his brother-in-law,
Quenza, but would seek the position of second lieutenant-colonel. In
this way he was assured of goo