But the Corsican people were not there to hear the enthusiastic speeches about liberty and to follow them.  Only a few hundred ardent republicans of the same sentiment applauded the republican Napoleon, and cried aloud that the republic must be defended with blood and life.  The majority of the Corsican people flocked to Paoli, and the commissioners sent by the Convention from Paris to Corsica, to depose and arrest Paoli, found co-operation and assistance only among the inhabitants of the cities and among the French troops.  Paoli, the president of the Consulta, was located at Corte; the messengers of the Convention gathered in Bastia the adherents of France, and excited them to strenuous efforts against the rebellious Consulta and the insurgent Paoli.

Civil war with all its horrors was there; the raging conflicts of the parties tore apart the holy bonds of family, friendship, and love.  Brother fought and argued against brother, friend rose up against friend, and whole families were destroyed, rent asunder by the impassioned rivalries of sentiment and partisanship.  Denunciations and accusations, suspicions and enmities, followed.  Every one trembled at his own shadow; and, to turn aside the peril of death, it was necessary to strike. [Footnote:  “Memoires du Roi Joseph,” vol. i., p. 51.]

The Bonaparte brothers opposed General Paoli with violent bitterness; bloody conflicts took place, in which the national Corsican party remained victorious.  Irritated and embittered by the opposition which some of the natives themselves were making to his patriotic efforts, Paoli persecuted with zealous activity the conquered, whom he resolved to destroy, that they might not imperil the young Corsican independence.  Joseph and Napoleon Bonaparte were the leaders of this party, and Paoli knew too well the energy and the intellectual superiority of Napoleon not to dread his influence.  Him, above all things, him and his family, must he render harmless, so as to weaken and to intimidate the French party.  He sent agents to Ajaccio, to arrest the whole Bonaparte family, and at the same time his troops approached the town to occupy it and make the French commissioners prisoners.  But these latter, informed in time of the danger, had gained time and saved themselves on board the French frigate lying in the harbor, and with them the whole Bonaparte family had embarked.  Napoleon, on whom the attention of Paoli’s agents had been specially directed, was more than once in danger of being seized by them, and it was due to the advice of a friend that, disguised as a sailor, he saved himself in time on board the French frigate and joined his family. [Footnote:  “Memoires de la Duchess d’Abrantes,” vol. i.] The commissioners of the Convention at once ordered the anchor to be weighed, and to steer toward France.

This frigate, on board of which the Bonaparte family in its flight had embarked, carried to France the future emperor and his fortune.