Chapter 58
Pasquale Paoli made his triumphant return from
exile in the spring of 1790. Joseph and Napoleon were amongst the
delegation from Corsica that met the great man in Marseilles. At
sixty-six he still stood tall and erect, and had the remains of the
commanding features that had so inspired his countrymen in earlier
years. Even Napoleon sensed the spell of the man when he was
introduced. Paoli held him by the shoulders and gazed into his
eyes.
‘Citizen Buona Parte, I had the privilege of
knowing your father. Carlos was a good man. I grieved when I heard
of his death, far too early for a young man of his promise. At
least he has good sons to carry on his work.’
Napoleon bowed his head in gratitude and replied,
‘Yes, sir. We will not rest until Corsica has won its
freedom.’
‘Freedom . . .’ Paoli’s brow tightened slightly as
he continued to stare in Napoleon’s eyes. ‘Yes, we will enjoy all
the freedoms that the new France has to offer.’
He squeezed Napoleon’s shoulder and moved on to the
next member of the delegation.
A huge crowd had gathered to greet Paoli as he
stepped ashore in Bastia. A path had been cleared for him by the
Swiss mercenaries of the Bastia garrison. He descended from the
gangway, and raised his hat in salute to the cheering people. A
large revolutionary cockade was pinned to the crown of the hat and
Paoli waved it slowly from side to side as he strode along the
quay, followed by the men of the delegation who smiled and waved to
the crowd.
The Buona Parte brothers accompanied Paoli as far
as Corte, the ancient capital in the centre of the island. There
Joseph remained, having been promised a minor post in Paoli’s new
administration. Napoleon made it known that he would be honoured to
accept any military command under Paoli before he returned to
Ajaccio alone. He reflected upon the delicacy of his situation.The
Paolists wanted independence. Most of the Jacobins wanted radical
democracy, and Napoleon wanted both. In pursuing that aim, he
risked enmity from both sides.
In the late summer he returned to the newly
reopened Jacobin Club and began to speak again. This time he kept
his arguments focused on events in Corsica, rather than putting the
case for the broader philosophical themes of the revolution. He
argued that any true revolutionary would start the revolution where
he stood. They should not wait on the politicians in Paris a moment
longer. The Jacobins of Ajaccio should work towards seizing the
citadel that loomed over the town and turn Ajaccio into a
revolutionary commune. Napoleon added that the Catholic Church must
be deprived of its tax rights and legal privileges. Even as he
argued this, he knew that the Paolists would disapprove. They were
nationalists, not atheists, and sure enough several members of the
audience sprang to their feet to denounce Napoleon and condemn his
heresies. He recognised one of them as Pozzo di Borgo, a former
friend from his childhood. Napoleon pointed to him.
‘By what right does the Church enforce these
taxes?’
‘By divine right!’ di Borgo shouted back.‘It is the
Will of God.’
‘And where exactly is this Will of God set down?
Not in the Bible. Not in any of the Scriptures.The truth is, men
made those taxes. And men can unmake them without offending the
Almighty.’
Di Borgo glared back at him. ‘The Church is the
embodiment of God’s Will. If the Church requires taxes, it is
because God requires taxes.’
‘God requires taxes?’ Napoleon laughed.‘What does
God need taxes for? Are there bills to be paid in Heaven?’
Several of the younger members laughed with him,
but di Borgo flushed with anger.‘Be careful, Buona Parte, or you
will be judged sooner than you think.’ With that he turned and left
the room, followed by several others and the jeers of the more
radical amongst the Jacobins.
When Napoleon left the club late that night, a
handful of the younger members walked home with him, in order to
continue discussing some of the points made by that evening’s
speakers. As the party turned into the street that led towards
Napoleon’s home, several shadowy figures emerged from a side alley
and quickly spread out across the road. Each carried a club.
‘What’s this?’ one of Napoleon’s companions laughed
nervously.‘There aren’t this many thieves in the whole of
Ajaccio.’
‘Quiet!’ Napoleon snapped. The thud of boots from
behind made him turn and he saw more dark shapes emerge from the
direction of the Jacobin Club to close the trap. ‘Shit . . .’
For a moment, all was still in the street. Napoleon
crouched down and clenched his fists. He drew a breath and cried
out at the top of his voice, ‘Follow me!’
He threw himself towards the men blocking the
street ahead, as his comrades came after him. Gritting his teeth,
he ran into one of their attackers before the man could swing his
club. They tumbled on to the cobblestones, Napoleon’s knee driving
the wind from the man’s lungs as they landed. He smashed his fists
into the man’s face, hearing the soft crunch of the nose breaking
as the man gasped in pain. Napoleon glanced round, and saw a tangle
of dark shapes fighting. It was impossible to tell who was on which
side, just as he had hoped when he launched his attack. He felt the
shaft of a club and he wrenched it from the man’s loose hand.
Staying low, he backed towards the wall of a building facing the
street. Before him the fight continued in a heaving mass of shadows
accompanied by grunts and cries of pain. Suddenly a figure
confronted him, club raised.
‘Come on,’ Napoleon growled. ‘Let’s get the
bastards!’
‘Right!’ The man laughed and turned back towards
the fight. At once Napoleon swung the club he had taken in a
scything arc and smashed it into the other man’s knee with a loud
crack. A shrill cry of agony split the air and the man sprawled to
the ground. Napoleon filled his lungs and shouted. ‘Jacobins! With
me!’ He turned and ran up the street towards his house. ‘Follow
me!’
Footsteps scraped over the cobblestones and thudded
after him as Napoleon ran on. Ahead he saw the dull glow of the
lantern his mother had lit above the front door for his late return
and he glanced back over his shoulder. The street behind him was
filled with figures running in the same direction.
‘Come on! This way!’
He reached the door, lifted the latch and threw
himself inside. Right behind him came two of his comrades, then
another, blood gushing from his scalp. Napoleon wrenched open the
cupboard where his father had kept his fowling piece. He grabbed
the gun, drawing back the flintlock as he crossed back to the door
and stood on the threshold. The first of the attackers came running
up: a tall man with a scarf tied across his mouth and nose to
conceal his identity.As he saw the muzzle of the gun he scrambled
to a halt.
‘Get out of here!’ Napoleon yelled. ‘All of you! Or
I swear I’ll shoot the first man to come a step nearer my
house!’
‘Stand your ground!’ a voice called out from
further down the street. Napoleon recognised it instantly.
‘Di Borgo! Tell your men to go, or I swear to God
I’ll shoot.’
There was a tense moment of silence, before
Napoleon heard a chuckle from the darkness.
‘So this is what it takes to make you a believer .
. . There must be no more disrespect for the Church.You’ve had your
warning, Buona Parte.There won’t be another. Come on, men, leave
them.’
The shadows drew off and Napoleon waited until they
were some distance away from the door before he lowered the gun and
closed the door to the street. He glanced round at his companions
and saw that they were all with him. Besides the youth with the
head wound, one was nursing his jaw and another was clutching a
broken wrist to his chest.All were panting and looked wild-eyed
with excitement and fear. Napoleon saw that his own hands were
trembling as they clutched the gun.
‘Hey,’ one of his comrades muttered, ‘would you
really have shot at them?’
Napoleon smiled and raised the barrel towards the
ceiling. ‘I don’t think anyone’s loaded it in years.’
He pulled the trigger. At once there was a fizz and
a deafening explosion as a chunk of plaster exploded from the
ceiling. The others jumped back in alarm and then stared at
Napoleon in shock.
Moments later a door was wrenched open, feet
pattered across the landing and his mother screamed out,‘What on
earth is going on? Who’s firing guns in my house at this time of
night?’
Napoleon exchanged an anxious glance with his
comrades, before they dissolved into laughter.
Napoleon took the warning seriously enough to make sure that he never entered the streets of Ajaccio alone. For the protection of himself and his family, he persuaded the members of the Jacobin Club to elect him lieutenant colonel of the town’s volunteer battalion of the National Guard. It was easily arranged, since he was one of the few men in Ajaccio with professional military training, and as autumn arrived Napoleon took up the post. Since the commander of the unit, Colonel Quenza, was an ageing merchant, another member of the Jacobin Club who had never fired a weapon in anger, let alone taken part in any training exercises, this left Napoleon in effective command of the unit. With a force of five hundred men behind him he had no further trouble from di Borgo and his Paolist friends. Napoleon was free to continue developing his political base in Ajaccio. At the same time he trained the men of the National Guard as thoroughly as possible, under the amused eyes of the off-duty soldiers of the garrison, who were inclined to neglect their training drills in this generally quiet backwater.
The only excitement the following summer was the
news of the royal family’s attempt to escape from Paris and join up
with an army of émigrés and foreign mercenaries to seize power back
from the National Assembly. Napoleon joined the other members in
the Jacobin Club as they crowded round the copies of the
Moniteur and the Mercure to read the first accounts
of the King’s arrest at Varennes. No one was in any doubt that he
was little more than a prisoner of the new regime in Paris. The
very last vestige of his authority had dissolved in his failed
escape attempt.
‘It’s over then,’ Napoleon decided as he finished
reading the reports.
‘What’s over?’ one of the younger members of the
club asked.
‘The monarchy. It’s finished.’ Napoleon tapped the
newspaper with his finger. ‘The King and that fool of a Queen have
been caught out.They’ve been pretending to go along with the
reforms ever since the Estates General first met. And all the time
they have been plotting against the French people. Now they’ll be
seen for what they are - traitors.’
Several faces turned in Napoleon’s direction and he
was aware that he had said too much. Even now, even here in the
Jacobin Club, there were some who clung to a tradition of respect
for the Crown. France was not quite ready to dispense with the
monarchy, at least not without causing bitter divisions. But given
that there was no longer any way of hiding from the venality of
King Louis, the National Assembly would be forced to act, to save
France as much as to save itself. Napoleon reflected a moment. If
the King was deposed, and that led to a breakdown in order and
maybe even civil war, then it was imperative that Corsica did not
get embroiled.The island had suffered enough already in its thirst
for freedom.