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When revolution came in 1789, then, Napoleon saw it primarily as a moment when history might be rolled back and Corsica freed. Obtaining yet another leave of absence from his regiment’s headquarters at Auxonne, where he had been on duty for the last ten months, in September he therefore again set off for Ajaccio. On reaching home, he found the island’s politics in confusion. For some of his compatriots - for the most part men who came from clans that had found themselves excluded from favour in the years of de facto independence - the way forward lay in the extension to Corsica of the same rights obtained by the metropolis in July 1789, and they therefore rallied to the Revolution, being eventually rewarded by a decree that made the island one with the rest of France. But for others, the answer rather lay in the return of the exiled Paoli and, by extension, a fresh revolt. On top of all this, the introduction in Corsica of the same system of local government as that which now made its appearance on the mainland provoked a furious outburst of intrigue and faction fighting. Through all this Napoleon negotiated his way with considerable opportunism, but rather less success. While his aim remained national independence, simply to raise the standard of revolt was unthinkable, and so Napoleon chose a more pragmatic course. Under his leadership the Bonapartes would seize control of the levers of power in Corsica while at the same time playing the part of Paris’s chief agents in Corsica and using this position of trust to petition for the return of Paoli. This last was soon obtained, and on 14 July il babbo landed near Bastia, and was then quickly elected both to the command-in-chief of the Corsican national guard and to the presidency of the council of the department of France which the island now constituted. At this point, however, things went wrong. Already alienated by Napoleon’s commission in the army, the old leader was deeply offended when Napoleon made some trenchant public criticisms of his defence of Corsica against the French in 1769. Far from becoming Paoli’s right-hand man, Napoleon found himself out in the cold, the result being that in February 1791 he had no option but to return to his regiment at Auxonne.

Back in France Napoleon played the part of the tribune of the people, and so exasperated his royalist commanding officer that he had him transferred to another unit at Valence. Here he continued his revolutionary activities, becoming secretary of the local Jacobin club, taking a prominent part in a variety of public ceremonies, and encouraging the purchase of the biens nationaux. But all this was at best a manoeuvre designed to keep his options open: beneath the surface Napoleon had not abandoned his hopes of securing the patronage of Paoli. His erstwhile hero spurned his advances, however, and thus it was that in the autumn of 1791 Napoleon again applied for leave and returned home, where he set about securing a commission in the famous ‘volunteers of

1791’. In April 1792 success was achieved in the shape of a lieutenantcolonelcy in the second battalion raised in Corsica (albeit not without the assistance of a certain degree of bribery and ballot-rigging). Meanwhile, Joseph had become mayor of Ajaccio’s town council. But acceptance by Paoli remained as far off as ever and Napoleon knew that his continued absence in Corsica was jeopardizing his commission in the regular army. When the local Jacobins decided to stage a showdown with their political opponents, he therefore had little option but to lend them the support of his troops. However, the plan failed and, with the radicals forced to back down, Napoleon had to restore his position in the metropolis. As he had now been suspended from the army list, this meant heading for Paris, especially as his political opponents in Corsica were busily engaged in pretending that he was somehow a counter-revolutionary. In the end everything was resolved: pardoned