Strange rumours were heard concerning Murat’s intentions.  An army of nine hundred men helped to give them some amount of confirmation.  It was then that Blancard, Donadieu, and Langlade took leave of him; Murat wished to keep them, but they had been vowed to the rescue of the exile, not to the fortunes of the king.

We have related how Murat had met one of his former Mamelukes, a man called Othello, on board the Bastia mailboat.  Othello had followed him to Viscovato, and the ex-King of Naples considered how to make use of him.  Family relations recalled him naturally to Castellamare, and Murat ordered him to return there, entrusting to him letters for persons on whose devotion he could depend.  Othello started, and reached his father-in-law’s safely, and thought he could confide in him; but the latter was horror-struck, and alarmed the police, who made a descent on Othello one night, and seized the letters.

The next day each man to whom a letter was addressed was arrested and ordered to answer Murat as if all was well, and to point out Salerno as the best place for disembarking:  five out of seven were dastards enough to obey; the two remaining, who were two Spanish brothers, absolutely refused; they were thrown into a dungeon.

However, on the 17th September, Murat left Viscovato; General Franceschetti and several Corsican officers served as escort; he took the road to Ajaccio by Cotone, the mountains of Serra and Bosco, Venaco and Vivaro, by the gorges of the forest of Vezzanovo and Bogognone; he was received and feted like a king everywhere, and at the gates of the towns he was met by deputations who made him speeches and saluted him with the title of “Majesty”; at last, on the 23rd September, he arrived at Ajaccio.  The whole population awaited him outside the walls, and his entry into the town was a triumphal procession; he was taken to the inn which had been fixed upon beforehand by the quartermasters.  It was enough to turn the head of a man less impressionable than Murat; as for him, he was intoxicated with it.  As he went into the inn he held out his hand to Franceschetti.

“You see,” he said, “what the Neapolitans will do for me by the way the Corsicans receive me.”

It was the first mention which had escaped him of his plans for the future, and from that very day he began to give orders for his departure.

They collected ten little feluccas:  a Maltese, named Barbara, former captain of a frigate of the Neapolitan navy, was appointed commander-in-chief of the expedition; two hundred and fifty men were recruited and ordered to hold themselves in readiness for the first signal.

Murat was only waiting for the answers to Othello’s letters:  they arrived on the afternoon of the 28th.  Murat invited all his officers to a grand dinner, and ordered double pay and double rations to the men.

The king was at dessert when the arrival of M. Maceroni was announced to him:  he was the envoy of the foreign powers who brought Murat the answer which he had been awaiting so long at Toulon.  Murat left the table and went into another room.  M. Maceroni introduced himself as charged with an official mission, and handed the king the Emperor of Austria’s ultimatum.  It was couched in the following terms: