The object of the French in assisting the Genoese was not the
acquisition of the island for themselves so much as to obviate
the danger, of which they had long been aware, of its
falling into the hands of another power, notably Great
Intervention of France, 1738.Britain. The Corsicans, on the other hand, though
ready enough to come to terms with the French king,
refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of Genoa even when
backed by the power of France. A powerful French force, under
the comte de Boissieux, arrived in the spring of 1738, and for
some months negotiations proceeded. But the effect of the French
guarantee of Corsican liberties was nullified by the demand that
the islanders should surrender their arms, and the attempt of
Boissieux to enforce the order for disarmament was followed, in
the winter of 1738–39, by his defeat at the hands of the Corsicans
and by the cutting up of several isolated French detachments.
In February 1739 Boissieux died. His successor, the
marquis de Maillebois, arrived in March with strong reinforcements,
and by a combination of severity and conciliation soon
reduced the island to order. Its maintenance, however, depended
on the presence of the French troops, and in October 1740 the
death of the emperor Charles VI. and the outbreak of the War of
the Austrian Succession necessitated their withdrawal. Genoese
and Corsicans were once more left face to face, and the perennial
struggle began anew.
In 1743 “King Theodore,” supported by a British squadron, made a descent on the island, but finding that he no longer possessed a following, departed never to return. The Corsicans, assembled in diet at Casinca, now elected Sardinian and British Intervention, 1746.Giampietro Gaffori and Alerio Matra as generals and “protectors of the fatherland” (protettori della patria), and began a vigorous onslaught on the Genoese strongholds. They were helped now by the sympathy and active aid of European powers, and in 1746 Count Domenico Rivarola, a Corsican in Sardinian service, succeeded in capturing Bastia and San Fiorenzo with the aid of a British squadron and Sardinian troops. The factious spirit of the Corsicans themselves was, however, their worst enemy. The British commander judged it inexpedient to intervene in the affairs of a country of which the leaders were at loggerheads; Rivarola, left to himself, was unable to hold Bastia—a place of Genoese sympathies—and in spite of the collapse of Genoa itself, now in Austrian hands, the Genoese governor succeeded in maintaining himself in the island. By the time of the signature of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, the situation of the island had again changed. Rivarola and Matra had departed, and Gaffori was left nominally supreme over a people torn by intestine feuds. Genoa, too, had expelled the Austrians with French aid, and, owing to a report that the king of Sardinia was meditating a fresh attempt to conquer the island, a strong French expedition under the marquis de Cursay had, at the request of the republic, occupied Calvi, Bonifacio, Ajaccio and Bastia. By the terms of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Renewed French Intervention.Corsica was once more assigned to Genoa, but the French garrison remained, pending a settlement between the republic and the islanders. In view of the intractable temper of the two parties no agreement could be reached; but Cursay’s personal popularity served to preserve the peace for a while. His withdrawal in 1752, however, was the signal for a general rising, and once more, at a diet held at Orezza, Gaffori was elected general and protector. In October of the following year, however, he fell victim to a vendetta and the nation was once more leaderless. His place was taken for a while by Clemente Paoli, son of Giacinto, who for a year or two succeeded, with the aid of other lieutenants of Gaffori, in holding the Genoese at bay. He was, however, by temperament unfitted to lead a turbulent and undisciplined people in time of stress, and in 1755, at his suggestion, his brother Pasquale was invited to come from Naples and assume the command.
The first task of Pasquale Paoli, elected general in April at an assembly at San Antonio della Casabianca, was to suppress the rival faction led by Emanuele Matra, son of Gaffori’s former colleague. By the spring of 1756 this was done, and the Corsicans were able to turn a united front against the Genoese. At this juncture the French, alarmed by a supposed understanding between Paoli and the British, once more intervened, and occupied Pasquale Paoli.Calvi, Ajaccio and San Fiorenzo until 1757, when their forces were once more called away by the wars on the continent. In 1758 Paoli renewed the attack on the Genoese, founding the new port of Isola Rossa as a centre whence the Corsican ships could attack the trading vessels of Genoa. The republic, indeed, was now too weak to attempt seriously to reassert its sway over the island, which, with the exception of the coast towns, Paoli ruled with absolute authority and with conspicuous wisdom. In the intervals of fighting he was occupied in reducing Corsican anarchy into some sort of civilized order. The vendetta was put down, partly by religious influence, partly with a stern hand; the surviving oppressive rights of the feudal signori were abolished; and the traditional institutions of the Terra di Comune were made the basis of a democratic constitution for the whole island.
As regarded the relations of Corsica all now depended on the
attitude of France to which both Paoli and the republic made
overtures. In 1764 a French expedition under the
comte de Marbeuf arrived, and, by agreement with
Corsica
sold to
France.Genoa, garrisoned three of the Genoese fortresses.
Though Genoese sovereignty had been expressly
recognized in the agreement authorizing this, it was in effect
non-existent. French and Corsicans remained on amicable terms,
and the inhabitants of the nominally Genoese towns actually
sent representatives to the national consulta or parliament. The
climax came early in 1767 when the Corsicans captured the
Genoese island of Capraja, and occupied Ajaccio and other places,
evacuated by the French as a protest against the asylum given to
the Jesuits exiled from France. Genoa now recognized that she
had been worsted in the long contest, and on the 15th of May 1768
signed a treaty selling the sovereignty of the island to France.
The Corsicans, intent on independence, were now faced with a more formidable enemy than the decrepit republic of Genoa. A section of the people indeed, were in favour of submission; but Paoli himself declared for resistance; and among those who supported him at the consulta summoned to discuss the question was his secretary Carlo Buonaparte, father of Napoleon Bonaparte, the future emperor of the French. Into the details of the war that followed, it is impossible to enter here; in the absence of the hoped-for help from Great Britain its issue could not be doubtful; and, though the task of the French was a hard one, by the summer of 1769 they were masters of the island. On the French conquest.16th of June Pasquale and Clemente Paoli, with some 400 of their followers, embarked on a British ship for Leghorn. On the 15th of September 1770, a general assembly of the Corsicans was summoned and the deputies swore allegiance to King Louis XV.
For twenty years Corsica, while preserving many of its old
institutions, remained a dependency of the French crown.
Then came the Revolution, and the island, conformed
to the new model, was incorporated in France as a
Corsica
and the
revolution
of 1789.separate department (see Renucci, ii. p. 271 seq.).
Paoli, recalled from exile by the National Assembly
on the motion of Mirabeau, after a visit to Paris, where
he was acclaimed as “the hero and martyr of liberty” by the
National Assembly and the Jacobin Club, returned in 1790 to
Corsica, where he was received with immense enthusiasm and
acclaimed as “father of the country.” With the new order
in the island, however, he was little in sympathy. In the towns
branches of the Jacobin Club had been established, and these
tended, as elsewhere, to usurp the functions of the regular organs
of government and to introduce a new element of discord into
a country which it had been Paoli’s life’s work to unify.
Suspicions of his loyalty to revolutionary principles had already
been spread at Paris by Bartolomeo Arena, a Corsican deputy
and ardent Jacobin, so early as 1791; yet in 1792, after the fall
of the monarchy, the French government, in its anxiety to secure
Corsica, was rash enough to appoint him lieutenant-general of
the forces and governor (capo comandante) of the island. Paoli
accepted an office which he had refused two years before at the
