The passionate earnestness with which Napoleon toiled at his book on Corsican history, the intense sympathy with which he studied the lives of Corsican heroes, the fiery wrath he nursed against those who had stricken down Corsican liberties, were but so many evidences of the set purpose of his youth--to free his country, to give it independence. There is no doubt that the one consuming ambition of these early years was as pure as it was great: he would do what Sampiero and Paoli had failed to do--he would achieve the independence of Corsica! Napoleon rejoined his regiment at Auxonne at the end of May, 1788. That he did so with reluctance is apparent from the manner in which he had distorted facts to obtain extension of his furlough. Garrison duty had no charms for him; the dull drudgery of daily routine became almost insupportable. It appears that he was put under arrest for the unsatisfactory manner in which he had superintended some work on the fortifications. When off duty he gave his time to his books. He became ill, and wrote to his mother, “I have no resource but work. I dress but once in eight days. I sleep but little, and take but one meal a day.” Under this regimen of no exercise, hard work, and little sleep he came near dying. In September, 1789, came another furlough, and the wan-looking lieutenant turned his face homeward. In passing through Marseilles he paid his respects to the Abbé Raynal. CHAPTER IV The French Revolution was now (1789–90) getting under full headway. The States-General had met on May 5, 1789; the Third Estate had asserted and made good its supremacy. The King having ordered up troops and dismissed Necker, riots followed; the Bastille was taken and demolished. The nobles who had persuaded Louis XVI. to adopt the measures which provoked the riots, fled to foreign lands. Louis was brought from Versailles to Paris, Bailly was made mayor of the city, Lafayette commander of the National Guard, and on the night session of August 4, feudalism, losing hope, offered itself up as a sacrifice to the Revolution. Liberty, fraternity, equality, freedom of conscience, liberty of the press, were proclaimed; and the mighty movement which was shaking down the Old Order was felt at Auxonne as in Paris. The officers, as a rule, were for the King; the soldiers for the nation. Society ladies and governmental officials were royalists, generally; so, also, the higher clericals. The curés and the masses of the people were for the Revolution. Instinctively, and without the slightest hesitation, Napoleon took sides with the nation. He needed no coercion, no change of heart; he was already an enemy of the Ancien Régime, and had been so from his first years in France.