it soon became
apparent that Corsica was too small a sphere for natures so able and
masterful as those of Paoli and Napoleon Buonaparte.

The first meeting of these two men must have been a scene of deep
interest. It was on the fatal field of Ponte Nuovo. Napoleon doubtless
came there in the spirit of true hero-worship. But hero-worship which
can stand the strain of actual converse is rare indeed, especially
when the expectant devotee is endowed with keen insight and habits of
trenchant expression. One phrase has come down to us as a result of
the interview; but this phrase contains a volume of meaning. After
Paoli had explained the disposition of his troops against the French
at Ponte Nuovo, Buonaparte drily remarked to his brother Joseph, "The
result of these dispositions was what was inevitable." [13]

For the present, Buonaparte and other Corsican democrats were closely
concerned with the delinquencies of the Comte de Buttafuoco, the
deputy for the twelve nobles of the island to the National Assembly of
France. In a letter written on January 23rd, 1791, Buonaparte
overwhelms this man with a torrent of invective.--He it was who had
betrayed his country to France in 1768. Self-interest and that alone
prompted his action then, and always. French rule was a cloak for his
design of subjecting Corsica to "the absurd feudal _regime_" of the
barons. In his selfish royalism he had protested against the new
French constitution as being unsuited to Corsica, "though it was
exactly the same as that which brought us so much good and was wrested
from us only amidst streams of blood."--The letter is remarkable for
the southern intensity of its passion, and for a certain hardening of
tone towards Paoli. Buonaparte writes of Paoli as having been ever
"surrounded by enthusiasts, and as failing to understand in a man any
other passion than fanaticism for liberty and independence," and as
duped by Buttafuoco in 1768.[14] The phrase has an obvious reference
to the Paoli of 1791, surrounded by men who had shared his long exile
and regarded the English constitution as their model. Buonaparte, on
the contrary, is the accredited champion of French democracy, his
furious epistle being printed by the Jacobin Club of Ajaccio.

After firing off this tirade Buonaparte returned to his regiment at
Auxonne (February, 1791). It was high time; for his furlough, though
prolonged on the plea of ill-health, had expired in the preceding
October, and he