Paoli called upon Madame Letitia, and exhausted his powers of persuasion in endeavoring to induce the family to unite with him in the treasonable surrender of the island to the English. "Resistance is hopeless," said he, "and by this perverse opposition, you are bringing irreparable ruin and misery on yourself and family." "I know of but two laws," replied Madame Letitia, heroically, "which it is necessary for me to obey, the laws of honor and of duty." A decree was immediately passed banishing the family from the island. One morning Napoleon hastened to inform his mother that several thousand peasants, armed with all the implements of revolutionary fury, were on the march to attack the house. The family fled precipitately, with such few articles of property as they could seize at the moment, and for several days wandered, houseless and destitute, on the sea-shore, until Napoleon could make arrangements for their embarkation. The house was sacked by the mob, and the furniture entirely destroyed. It was midnight when an open boat manned by four strong rowers, with muffled oars, approached the shore in the vicinity of the pillaged and battered dwelling of Madame Letitia. A dim lantern was held by an attendant, as the whole Bonaparte family, in silence and in sorrow, with the world, its poverty and all its perils, wide before them, entered the boat. A few trunks and bandboxes, contained all their available property. The oarsmen pulled out into the dark and lonely sea. Earthly boat never before held such a band of emigrants. There sat Madame Letitia, Joseph, Napoleon, Lucien, Louis, Jerome, Eliza, Pauline, and Caroline. Little did those poor and friendless fugitives then imagine that all the thrones of Europe were to tremble before them, and that their celebrity was to fill the world. Napoleon took his stand at the bows, for although the second son, he was already the commanding spirit of the family. They soon ascended the sides of a small vessel which was waiting for them in the offing, with her sails fluttering in the breeze, and when the morning sun arose over the blue waters of the Mediterranean, they were approaching the harbor of Nice. Here they remained but a short time, when they removed to Marseilles, where the family resided in great pecuniary embarrassment until relieved by the rising fortunes of Napoleon. [Illustration: THE EMIGRANTS.]