his residence in Sartene, the king, at the request of the nobles of the region, conferred with lavish hand the titles of Count, Baron, and Baronet, and with these the representatives of the houses of Ornano, Istria, Rocca, and Leca, went home comforted. While the king thus acted in kingly fashion, and filled the island with counts and cavaliers, as if poor Corsica had overnight become a wealthy empire, the bitterest cares of state were preying upon him in secret. For he could not but confess to himself that his kingdom was after all but a painted one, and that he had surrounded himself with phantoms. The long-announced fleet obstinately refused to appear, because it too was a painted fleet. This chimera occasioned the king greater embarrassment than if it had been a veritable fleet of a hundred well-equipped hostile ships. Theodore began to feel uncomfortable. Already there was an organized party of malcontents in the land, calling themselves the Indifferents. Aitelli and Rafaelli had formed this party, and Hyacinth Paoli himself had joined it. The royal troops had even come into collision with the Indifferents, and had been repulsed. It seemed, therefore, as if Theodore's kingdom were about to burst like a soap-bubble; Giafferi alone still kept down the storm for a while. In these circumstances, the king thought it might be advisable to go out of the way for a little; to leave the island, not secretly, but as a prince, hastening to the Continent to fetch in person the tardy succours. He called a parliament at Sartene, announced that he was about to take his departure, and the reason why; settled the interim government, at the head of which he put Giafferi, Hyacinth Paoli, and Luca Ornano; made twenty-seven Counts and Baronets governors of provinces; issued a manifesto; and on the 11th of November 1736, proceeded, accompanied by an immense retinue, to Aleria, where he embarked in a vessel showing French colours, taking with him Count Costa, his chancellor, and some officers of his household. He would have been captured by a Genoese cruiser before he was out of sight of his kingdom, and sent to Genoa, if he had not been protected by the French flag. King Theodore landed at Leghorn in the dress of an abbé, wishing to remain incognito; he then travelled to Florence, to Rome, and to Naples, where he left his chancellor and his officers, and went on board a vessel bound for Amsterdam, from which city, he said, his subjects should speedily hear good news. CHAPTER VII. GENOA IN DIFFICULTIES--AIDED BY FRANCE--THEODORE EXPELLED HIS KINGDOM.