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Updated: April 30, 2025
I ardently wished for the interview for which M. Buttafuoco had given me reason to hope, and I waited the result of it to guide me in my determination. Whilst I thus hesitated came on the persecutions of Motiers, which obliged me to retire. I was not prepared for a long journey, especially to Corsica. I expected to hear from Buttafuoco; I took refuge in the island of St.
Napoleon had written, probably in the previous year, a notorious diatribe against Buttafuoco in the form of a letter to its object and the very night on which the news from Paris was received, he seized the opportunity to read it before the club at Ajaccio. The paper, as now in existence, is pompously dated January twenty-third, 1791, from "my summer house of Milleli."
Since the death of Charles de Buonaparte, the former had been represented at Versailles by Buttafuoco, Choiseul's unworthy instrument in acquiring the island, and now, as then, an uninfluential and consequential self-seeker. Its members were all aristocrats and royalist in politics.
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. 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.
Pursued by the underhand dealings of my secret persecutors to every place in which I took refuge, and seeing no other except Corsica where I could in my old days hope for the repose I had until then been everywhere deprived of, I resolved to go there with the directions of M. Buttafuoco as soon as this was possible, but to live there in tranquillity; renouncing, in appearance, everything relative to legislation, and, in some measure, to make my hosts a return for their hospitality, to confine myself to writing in the country the history of the Corsicans, with a reserve in my own mind of the intention of secretly acquiring the necessary information to become more useful to them should I see a probability of success.
You remember the story of Terentia, who was first married to Cicero, then to Sallust, and at last in her old age married a young nobleman, who imagined that she must possess some secret which would convey to him eloquence and genius." Burton's Life, ii. 307, 308. To Buttafuoco, p. 48, etc. Corr., vi. 176. Feb. 26, 1770.
There was some dissent to a vote of censure passed upon the conduct of Buttafuoco and Peretti, but it was insignificant. Pozzo di Borgo and Gentili were chosen to declare at the bar of the National Assembly the devotion of Corsica to its purposes, and to the course of reform as represented by it.
The attitude of the department of war at Paris was regulated by Buttafuoco, and was of course hostile to the insidious scheme of a local militia. The minister of war would do nothing but submit the suggestion to the body against whose influence it was aimed, the hated council of twelve nobles. The stupid sarcasm of such a step was well-nigh criminal.
The desires of both parties were temporarily fulfilled. The names of Mirabeau, Salicetti, and Volney were shouted with acclaim, those of Buttafuoco and Peretti with reprobation. The regular troops were withdrawn from Ajaccio; the ascendancy of the liberals was complete. Then feeble Genoa was heard once more.
Buttafuoco, who represented the opinion that Corsica for its own good must be incorporated with France, and not merely come under her protection, had a few months previously also invited the Genevan prophet to visit the island, and outline a constitution for its people. But the snare was spread in vain.
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