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The minister reported the conduct of both Quenza and Buonaparte as most reprehensible, and declared that if their offense had been purely military he would have court-martialed them. Learning first at Marseilles that war had broken out, and that the companies of his regiment were dispersed to various camps for active service, Buonaparte hastened northward.
With skilful diplomacy Napoleon agreed that he would not presume to be a candidate for the office of first lieutenant-colonel, which was desired by Peretti, a near friend of Paoli, for his brother-in-law, Quenza, but would seek the position of second lieutenant-colonel.
The government at Paris might be pacified if the absentee officer were restored to his post; with Quenza in command of the volunteers, there would be little danger of a second outbreak in Ajaccio.
These were Morati, a friend of Peraldi, the Paolist deputy; Quenza, more or less neutral, and Grimaldi, a devoted partisan of the Buonapartes.
The attitude of the government is clearly expressed in a despatch of July eighth from the minister of war, Lajard, to Maillard, commander of the Ajaccio garrison. The misdeeds of Quenza and Buonaparte were of a civil and not a military nature, cognizable therefore under the new legislation only by ordinary courts, not by military tribunals.
Both Buonaparte and Quenza were enraged with Paoli's nephew, declaring him to have acted traitorously. It is significant of the utter anarchy then prevailing that nobody was punished for the disgraceful fiasco. Buonaparte, on landing, at once bade farewell to his volunteers.
Quenza, who was chosen first lieutenant-colonel, was a man of no character whatever, a nobody. He was moreover absorbed in the duties of a place in the departmental administration. Buonaparte, therefore, was in virtual command of a sturdy, well-armed, legal force.
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