present conditions? The personality of the young
adventurer had for a long time been curiously double: but while he had
successfully retained the position of a French officer in France, his
identity as a Corsican patriot had been nearly obliterated in Corsica
by his constant quarrels and repeated failures. Having become a French
radical, he had been forced into a certain antagonism to Paoli and
had thereby jeopardized both his fortunes and his career as far as
they were dependent on Corsican support. But with Paoli under the ban
of the Convention, and suspected of connivance with English schemes,
there might be a revulsion of feeling and a chance to make French
influence paramount once more in the island under the leadership of
the Buonapartes and their friends. For the moment Napoleon preserved
the outward semblance of the Corsican patriot, but he seems to have
been weary at heart of the thankless role and entirely ready to
exchange it for another. Whatever may have been his plan or the
principles of his conduct, it appears as if the decisive step now to
be taken had no relation to either plan or principles, but that it was
forced upon him by a chance development of events which he could not
have foreseen, and which he was utterly unable to control.

It is unknown whether Salicetti or he made the first advances in
coming to an understanding for mutual support, or when that
understanding was reached, but it existed as early as January, 1793, a
fact conclusively shown by a letter of the former dated early in that
month. It was April fifth when Salicetti reached Corsica; the news of
Paoli's denunciation by the Convention arrived, as has been said, on
the seventeenth. Seeing how nicely adjusted the scales of local
politics were, the deputy was eager to secure favor from Paris, and
wrote on the sixteenth an account of how warmly his commission had
been received. Next day the blow of Paoli's condemnation fell, and it
became plain that compromise was no longer possible. When even the
Buonapartes were supporting Paoli, the reconciliation of the island
with France was clearly impracticable. Salicetti did not hesitate, but
as between Paoli and Corsica with no career on the one side, and the
possibilities of a great career under France on the other, quickly
chose the latter. The same considerations weighed with Buonaparte; he
followed his patron, and as a reward was appointed by the French
commission inspector-general of artiller