Paoli, as a French official, of course could not listen for an instant to such a preposterous notion. But as a patriot anxious to keep all the influence he could, and as a family friend of the Buonapartes, he was unwilling to order the young captain back to his post in France, as he might well have done. The interview between the two men at Corte was, therefore, indecisive. The older was benignant but firm in refusing his formal consent; the younger pretended to be indignant that he could not secure his rights: it is said that he even threatened to denounce in Paris the anti-nationalist attitude of his former hero. So it happened that Buonaparte returned to Ajaccio with a permissive authorization, and, welcomed by his men, assumed a command to which he could have no claim, while Paoli shut his eyes to an act of flagrant insubordination. Paoli saw that Buonaparte was irrevocably committed to revolutionary France; Buonaparte was convinced, or pretended to be, that Paoli was again leaning toward an English protectorate. French imperialist writers hint without the slightest basis of proof that both Paoli and Pozzo di Borgo were in the pay of England. Many have believed, in the same gratuitous manner, that there was a plot among members of the French party to give Buonaparte the chance, by means of the Sardinian expedition, to seize the chief command at least of the Corsican troops, and thus eventually to supplant Paoli. If this conjecture be true, Paoli either knew nothing of the conspiracy, or behaved as he did because his own plans were not yet ripe. The drama of his own personal perplexities, cross-purposes, and ever false positions, was rapidly moving to an end; the logic of events was too strong for the upright but perplexed old patriot, and a scene or two would soon complete the final act of his public career.