"When the treaty of Compiègne had been concluded, Monsieur de Chauvelin landed with twenty-four battalions on our coasts. Monsieur de Choiseul, who attached the utmost importance to the speedy accomplishment of the objects of the expedition, became so uneasy that he could not conceal his anxiety from you—you advised him to send you here with a few millions. As Philip took cities with his sumpter-mule, you promised to overcome every obstacle, and produce complete subjection.... No sooner said than done; you hastened over the sea, threw off the mask, and, with money and promotion in your hand, you opened communications with those whom you considered most accessible. "The Corsican cabinet had no idea that a Corsican could love himself more than his country—it had intrusted you with its interests. As you, on the other hand, had no idea that a man could _not_ love money and himself more than his country, you sold yourself and hoped to buy every one else. Profound moralist! you knew the price of each man's fanaticism. A few pounds of gold more or less, were for you the shades of difference in character! "You deceived yourself, however; the weak were perhaps shaken, but they were shocked at the frightful thought of lacerating the bosom of their country; they imagined they saw their fathers, their brothers, or their friends, who had perished in its defence, rising from their graves to overwhelm them with curses. These ridiculous prejudices were powerful enough to check you in your career. You sighed that you had to deal with a childish people; but, Monsieur, such refined sentiments as yours are not given to the multitude, and they live on in poverty and wretchedness, while the prudent man, as soon as circumstances become in any degree favourable to him, knows how to rise. And that is pretty nearly the moral of your history. "In giving account of the obstacles which interfered with the fulfilment of your promises, you proposed that the Royal-Corse regiment should be sent here. You hoped that its example would convert our too good and too simple peasantry; that it would accustom them to a thing in which they found so much that was repulsive—but you were deceived in this hope too. Did not Rossi, Marengo, and some other fools, excite such an enthusiasm in this regiment, that the collective officers declared, in an authentic document, that they would rather send back their commissions than break their oath, or be unfaithful to still more sacred duties?