two children died in infancy. The third, Joseph, was born in 1768,
when the Corsican patriots were making their last successful efforts
against their new French oppressors: the fourth, the famous Napoleon,
saw the light on August 15th, 1769, when the liberties of Corsica were
being finally extinguished. Nine other children were born before the
outbreak of the French Revolution reawakened civil strifes, amidst
which the then fatherless family was tossed to and fro and finally
whirled away to France.

Destiny had already linked the fortunes of the young Napoleon
Buonaparte with those of France. After the downfall of Genoese rule in
Corsica, France had taken over, for empty promises, the claims of the
hard-pressed Italian republic to its troublesome island possession. It
was a cheap and practical way of restoring, at least in the
Mediterranean the shattered prestige of the French Bourbons. They had
previously intervened in Corsican affairs on the side of the Genoese.
Yet in 1764 Paoli appealed to Louis XV. for protection. It was
granted, in the form of troops that proceeded quietly to occupy the
coast towns of the island under cover of friendly assurances. In 1768,
before the expiration of an informal truce, Marbeuf, the French
commander, commenced hostilities against the patriots[4]. In vain did
Rousseau and many other champions of popular liberty protest against
this bartering away of insular freedom: in vain did Paoli rouse his
compatriots to another and more unequal struggle, and seek to hold the
mountainous interior. Poor, badly equipped, rent by family feuds and
clan schisms, his followers were no match for the French troops; and
after the utter break-up of his forces Paoli fled to England, taking
with him three hundred and forty of the most determined patriots. With
these irreconcilables Charles Buonaparte did not cast in his lot, but
accepted the pardon offered to those who should recognize the French