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The Buonapartes had no influence whatever in these elections. Joseph was not even nominated. The choice fell upon two men selected by Paoli: one of them, Peraldi, was already embittered against the family; the other, Pozzo di Borgo, though so far friendly enough, thereafter became a relentless foe.
Buonaparte's natural associates were the younger men Masseria, son of a patriot line; Pozzo di Borgo, Peraldi, Cuneo, Ramolini, and others less influential. The only Corsican with French military training, he was, in view of uncertainties and probabilities already on the horizon, a person of considerable consequence.
In this way he was assured of good will from two of the three commissioners; the other was of course hostile, being a partizan of Peraldi. The election, as usual in Corsica, seems to have passed in turbulence and noisy violence. His enemies attacked Buonaparte with every weapon: their money, their influence, and in particular with ridicule.
At the same time Colonel Peraldi and the Italian chasseurs overthrew with their bayonets the Russians, who were already approaching the left of the bridge, and inebriated by the smoke and the fire, through which they had passed, by the havoc which they made, and by their victory, they pushed forward without stopping on the elevated plain, and endeavoured to make themselves masters of the enemy's cannon: but one of those deep clefts, with which the soil of Russia is intersected, stopped them in the midst of a destructive fire; their ranks opened, the enemy's cavalry attacked them, and they were driven back to the very gardens of the suburbs.
The third commissioner, living as a guest with Peraldi, was seized during the night preceding the election by a body of Buonaparte's friends, and put under lock and key in their candidate's house "to make you entirely free; you were not free where you were," said the instigator of the stroke, when called to explain.
The sister island was represented as eager to free itself from the control of Savoy. In order to secure Paoli's influence not only in his own island, but in Sardinia, where he was likewise well known and admired, the ministers forced upon him the unwelcome appointment of lieutenant-general in the regular army, and his friend Peraldi was sent to prepare a fleet at Toulon.
His stature, his poverty, and his absurd ambitions were held up to contempt and scorn. The young hotspur was cut to the quick, and, forgetting Corsican ways, made the witless blunder of challenging Peraldi to a duel, an institution scorned by the Corsican devotees of the vendetta. The climax of contempt was Peraldi's failure even to notice the challenge.
He is as great a lawyer as he is a captain and administrator. The peculiarity of this disposition is never submitting to truth, but always to speak or write with reference to an audience, to plead a cause. Murati, seized unawares, is brought back by force and locked up in Bonaparte's house, who gravely says to him "I wanted you to be free, entirely at liberty; you were not so with the Peraldi."
Peraldi, the Corsican deputy, was a near relative of the defeated rival; Paoli's displeasure was only too manifest; the bitter hate of a large element in Ajaccio, including the royalist commander of the garrison, was unconcealed. Napoleon's energy, rashness, and ambition combined to make Pozzo di Borgo detest him. He was accused of being a traitor, the source of all trouble, of plotting a new St.
At the same time, Colonel Peraldi and the Italian troops overthrew with their bayonets the Russians who were already approaching the left of the bridge: infuriated by the smoke and the fire through which they had passed, and encouraged by their success and the havoc which they made, they pushed forward without stopping on the elevated plain, and endeavored to make themselves masters of the enemy's cannon; but one of those deep clefts with which the soil of Russia is intersected stopped them in the midst of a destructive fire, their ranks opened, the enemy's cavalry attacked them, and they were driven back to the very gardens of the suburb.
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