[Footnote 22: These phrases may nearly all be found in the notes which he had taken or jottings he had made while reading Voltaire and Rousseau: Napoléon inconnu, II, 209-292.] The second cause for Buonaparte's delay in returning to France on the expiration of his furlough was his political and military ambition. This was suddenly quenched by the receipt of news that the Assembly at Paris would not create the longed-for National Guard, nor the ministry lend itself to any plan for circumventing the law. It was, therefore, evident that every chance of becoming Paoli's lieutenant was finally gone. By the advice of the president himself, therefore, Buonaparte determined to withdraw once more to France and to await results. Corsica was still distracted. A French official sent by the war department just at this time to report on its condition is not sparing of the language he uses to denounce the independent feeling and anti-French sympathies of the people. "The Italian," he says, "acquiesces, but does not forgive; an ambitious man keeps no faith, and estimates his life by his power." The agent further describes the Corsicans as so accustomed to unrest by forty years of anarchy that they would gladly seize the first occasion to throw off the domination of laws which restrain the social disorder. The Buonaparte faction, enumerated with the patriot brigand Zampaglini at their head, he calls "despicable creatures," "ruined in reputation and credit." It would be hard to find a higher compliment to Paoli and his friends, considering the source from which these words emanated. They were all poor and they were all in debt. Even now, in the age of reform, they saw their most cherished plans thwarted by the presence in every town of garrisons composed of officers and men who, though long resident in the island, and attached to its people by many ties, were nevertheless conservative in their feelings, and, by the instinct of their tradition and discipline, devoted to the still powerful official bureaus not yet destroyed by the Revolution. To replace these by a well-organized and equipped National Guard was now the most ardent wish of all patriots. There was nothing unworthy in Napoleon's longing for a command under the much desired but ever elusive reconstitution of a force organized and armed according to the model furnished by France itself. Repeated disappointments like those he had suffered before, and was experiencing again, would have crushed the spirit of a common man.