In the club of the friends of the constitution, Robespierre said to Paoli, "Oh! there was a time when we endeavoured to suppress freedom in its last places of refuge. But no! this was the crime of despotism. the French people has exploded it. What a great atonement for conquered Corsica, and injured humanity! Noble citizens, you defended freedom at a time when we did not venture even to hope for it. You have suffered for it; you triumph with it, and your triumph is ours. Let us unite to preserve it for ever, and may its venal opponents grow pale with fear on beholding this our holy alliance."

Paoli could not yet foresee in what a relation the course of events would put him towards this very France, and that he would once more oppose her as an enemy. He departed for Corsica. At Marseille a Corsican deputation awaited him, among which were the two young club-leaders of Ajaccio, Joseph and Napoleon Bonaparte. With tears Paoli stepped on to the land at Cape Corso, and kissed the soil of his country; he was conducted in triumph from canton to canton. The Te Deum was sung throughout the country.

From that time Paoli devoted himself entirely to the affairs of his country, as President of the National Assembly, and as Lieutenant-general of the Corsican National Guard; and in the year 1791, he undertook also the command of the division of the island. Now although the French Revolution had silenced the special interests of the Corsicans, yet these interests began to work, and most of all in the soul of Paoli, whose uppermost virtue was patriotism. Paoli could never convert himself into a Frenchman, nor ever forget that his nation had once had its independence and its own constitution. A variance soon took place between him and some parties; some were aristocratically disposed, and friendly to France, such as Gaffori, Rossi, Peretti, and Buttafuoco; the rest were enthusiastic democrats, who saw the happiness of the world only in the whirl of the French Revolution, as the Bonapartes, Saliceti, and Arena.

The execution of the king, and the desperate conduct of the men of the people in Paris, wounded the humanist Paoli. He gradually broke with France and the revolution; and this breach was publicly visible after the unsuccessful enterprise undertaken by France from Corsica against Sardinia, the frustration of which they laid at Paoli's door. His adversaries formally accused him and Pozzo di Borgo, the attorney-general, of being particularists, and desirous to separate the island from France,

The Convention summoned him to answer these accusations, and sent to the island as its commissioners, Saliceti, Lacombe, and Delcher. But Paoli did not mind the decree, but sent a firm and dignified letter to the Convention, in which he repelled the accusations, and complained of their summoning before a court an aged man, and a martyr to freedom. Should Paoli present himself to the opposition of criers and mountebanks, and then have to lay his hoary head, after all, under the knife of the guillotine should this be the conclusion of so eventful and so noble a life?

The refusal to follow the command of the Convention occasioned the complete secession of Paoli and the Paolists from France. The patriots equipped themselves, and published distinct declarations, that they desired to consider Corsica as separated from France. The commissioners hastily took their departure, and on their reports the Convention declared Paoli guilty of high treason, and put him out of the pale of the law. The island separated into two hostile armies, the patriots and the republicans, which were already approaching a collision.

In the mean time Paoli had resolved to place the island under the protection and the government of England. Nothing could be a more natural wish for him; he had already concerted measures with Admiral Hood, who commanded the English fleet lying before Toulon; and Hood set off with his ships in the direction of Corsica. He landed at San Fiorenzo, February 2, 1794. This fortress fell after a brisk bombarding, and Bastia was taken likewise, by the capitulation of General Antonio Gentili.

Calvi alone, that had withstood so many storms in so many ages, still held out; the English bombs committed dreadful devastation in the little town, which almost sank into ruins. On the 20th July, 1794, the fortress surrendered; the commander, Casabianca, capitulated, and embarked with his troops for France. Bonifazio and Ajaccio being already in the hands of the Paolists, the republicans had no tenable post on the island left. They emigrated; and Paoli and the English were the undisputed masters of Corsica.

A Corsican national assembly hereupon proclaimed the total separation of the island from France, and placed it under the protection of England. But England was not satisfied with the mere right of protection, but laid claim to sovereignty over Corsica; and this occasioned a breach between Paoli and Pozzo

di Borgo, whom Sir Gilbert Elliot had gained over to his side. On the 10th June, 1794, the Corsicans declared that they were willing to unite their country with Great Britain; but that it must retain its independent existence, and be governed by a viceroy, according to its own constitution.

Paoli had counted on the King of England making him viceroy, but he was disappointed; for Gilbert Elliot was sent to Corsica in this capacity. This was a great mistake, both because Elliot was utterly unacquainted with the condition of the island, and because Paoli could not but be deeply wounded by it.

The aged man immediately retired into private life, and when Elliot perceived that the difference between him and the English must become dangerous, he wrote to George III. to beg that he would endeavour to remove Pasquale. This was done. The King of England invited Paoli, by a friendly letter, to repair to London, to pass the remainder of his days in honour at court. Paoli was in his house at Morosaglia when he received the letter. He repaired sorrowfully to San Fiorenzo, where he embarked; and thus he left his country for the third and last time, in October, 1795. This great man shared the fate of most of the legislators and people's men of antiquity: he died, requited by unthankfulness, unhappy, and in a foreign land. The two greatest men of Corsica, Pasquale and Napoleon, hostile to one another, were both to die and be buried on British ground.

But the dominion of the English in Corsica, perverse and bad from ignorance of the country and people, lasted not long. As soon as Napoleon had conquered in Italy, he despatched Generals Gentili and Casalta with troops to the island; and no sooner did these appear than the Corsicans, already exasperated at the banishment of Paoli, rose against the English. The latter gave up, with almost unaccountable haste, an island, from whose people an unbridged chasm of national contrast separated them; and in November, 1796, there was not an Englishman left in Corsica. The island returned under the supremacy of France.

Pasquale Paoli lived to see the empire of Napoleon. This satisfaction at least, that of seeing a fellow-countryman at the head of the history of Europe, was vouchsafed him. Having again lived in exile in London for twelve years, he died a peaceful death, February 5, 1807, at the age of eighty-two years, falling asleep with thoughts of his people, which he had loved so ardently. He was the oldest legislator of the times of Euro

pean liberty, and the patriarch of liberty. In his last letter to his friend Padovani, the noble old man says, when reviewing his life with humility: "I have lived long enough, and could it be granted to me to begin my life again, I would decline the boon, unless accompanied by the rational cognition of my past life, to correct the errors and follies that have attended it.'

One of the Corsican exiles announced his death in these terms, in a letter to his native country :-

GIACOMORSO TO M. PADOVANI.

"LONDON, June 2, 1807.—It is true, alas! that the public papers are guilty of no error about the death of the poor general. He lay down on Monday, February 2, at half-past eight o'clock in the evening; and at half-past eleven o'clock on the night of the following Thursday, he died in my arms. He bequeaths to the school at Corte, or to the university, an annual salary of £50 sterling for each of four professors; and a new mastership to the school of Rostino, which is to be established at Morosaglia.

"He was buried on the 13th of February, at St. Pancras, where almost all Catholics are interred. His funeral must have cost nearly £500. About the middle of April last, Dr. Barnabi and I went to Westminster Abbey, to find a place where we can erect a monument to him, containing his bust.

"Paoli said when dying, 'My nephews have little to expect from me, but I will bequeath to them, as a memorial and consolation, this Bible-saying: I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.' ”*

CHAPTER IX.

FROM THE NATIVE PLACE OF THE PAOLI.

IT was late when I reached Rostino or Morosaglia. These names designate not a single paese, but a collection of hamlets scattered over the solemn rugged mountains. I found the right road, with difficulty, through several of these adjoining hamlets, to the convent of Morosaglia, mounting upon difficult rocky paths, and descending again into the valley, under gigantic chestnut-trees. Opposite the convent is a locanda, a rarity in Corsica. I found there an enlightened young man, who an

*Psalm xxxvii. 25.

nounced himself as the director of the Paoli-school, and promised me his assistance for the morrow.

In the morning I went to the little village of Stretta, where the three Paolis were born. One must see this Casa Paoli fully to comprehend the history of the Corsicans, and to admire yet more these extraordinary men. It is a wretched, blackened village-hovel, standing on a granite rock. A fresh mountainspring wells up immediately before the door. The house is composed of stones put together without art, ragged and unhewn like a tower, and with frequent gaps; and has few and unsymmetrical windows, without glass, but with wooden shutters, as in Pasquale's time. When Pasquale was chosen by the Corsicans to be their general, and was expected to arrive from Naples, his brother Clement had panes of glass put in the windows of the sitting-room, to make the paternal abode more comfortable for his brother. But no sooner had Pasquale entered and noticed the luxurious alteration, than he smashed all the panes with his stick, saying that he would not live in his father's house as an earl, but as a plain native of the country. The windows have remained paneless now, as then. You may survey from them the grand panorama of mountains from Niolo as far as the heaven-towering Monte Rotondo.

A simple country lass, a relative of Paoli, took me into the house. Every thing in it bears the stamp of a peasant's cottage; you ascend by a steep wooden staircase to the mean-looking chambers, in which Paoli's wooden table and chair are still standing. I was delighted to stand in the little room in which Paoli was born, and felt more pleasurable emotions there than in the chamber of Napoleon's birth.

Pasquale's fine figure presented itself to me here once moreplastic, grave, and dignified as he used to appear, associated with the figure of a noble father and a heroic brother. In this little chamber Pasquale came into the world, April, 1724. His mother was Dionisia Valentina, an excellent woman, from a place near Ponte Nuovo, which was pregnant with such fatal events to her son. With his father, Hyacinthus, we are already acquainted; he was originally a physician, and was made general of the Corsicans, together with Ceccaldi and Giafferi. He was distinguished by exalted virtues, and worthy of the glory of having given two such sons to his country. He was an excellent orator, and known also as a poet. Amidst the din of arms, these powerful minds found time and buoyancy enough to keep