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The jealousy and envy which, though possessed of many most amiable qualities, he frankly avowed, broke out violently at this interview. Upon another occasion, when Goldsmith confessed himself to be of an envious disposition, I contended with Johnson that we ought not to be angry with him, he was so candid in owning it. I dined with Dr. Johnson at General Paoli's.
On August sixth, 1764, was signed a provisional agreement between Genoa and France by which the former was to cede for four years all her rights of sovereignty, and the few places she still held in the island, in return for the latter's intervention to thwart Paoli's plan for securing virtual independence. At the end of the period France was to pay Genoa the millions owed to her.
It is not at all clear that as late as this time Paoli was eager for Napoleon's assistance nor the latter for Paoli's support. The complete breach came soon and lasted until, when their views no longer clashed, they both spoke generously one of the other.
In all probability he was sent to test Paoli's attitude. Versatile and insinuating, he displayed great activity among the islanders.
But Napoleon had satisfied himself that Corsica was too small a country to maintain independence, that she must fall under the rule either of France or England; and that her interests would be best served by adhering to the former. He therefore resisted all Paoli's offers, and tendered his sword to the service of Salicetti.
Curiously longing in his exile for a second Sampiero to have wielded the physical power while he himself should have become a Lycurgus, Paoli's wish was to be half-way fulfilled in that a warrior greater than Sampiero was about to be born in Corsica, one who should, by the very union so long resisted, come, as the master of France, to wield a power strong enough to shatter both tyrannies and dynasties, thus clearing the ground for a lawgiving closely related to Paoli's own just and wise conceptions of legislation.
To make matters sure he solemnly bound Frau Stern to secrecy. That accomplished, he strode whistling down through the purple twilight to his well-earned fritto at Paoli's. The next day began our wondering what Emma would do. She did, as is known, a thing that her simple Knickerbocker ancestresses would have approved presented Crocker to the St. Michael and left the decision modestly to the men.
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.
"I am a son of Corsica," Napoleon replied proudly; "that noble country which this man ground in the dust." "As well he might," replied the teacher tauntingly. "He was Corsica's best friend. He was worth a thousand Paoli's." "It is not so!" cried Napoleon, hot with patriotic indignation. "You talk like all Frenchmen. Paoli was a great man. He loved his country. I admire him. I wish to be like him.
If I had remained a Corsican, Paoli's treachery would have made me an Englishman, to which I should never have become reconciled, although had I been an Englishman I should have taken more real pleasure out of the battle of Waterloo than I got. "After this I was ordered to Toulon.
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