"If Paoli was ambitious, then he has gained everything by the Republic; and if he has showed himself an adherent of ... since the Constituent Assembly, what should he do now, _when the people is everything_? "Paoli ambitious! Representatives! when the French were governed by a corrupt court, when men believed neither in virtue nor in love of country, then certainly it might have been said that Paoli was ambitious. _We made war against the tyrants; it is to be supposed that that was not from love of country and of liberty, but from the ambition of our leaders!_ In Coblenz, Paoli must be considered as ambitious; but in Paris—_the centre of French freedom_—Paoli, if people know him well, must be accounted the patriarch of the French Republic; _posterity will think thus_—the people think thus. Follow my advice, silence calumny, and the utterly corrupt men who use it as their instrument. Representatives! Paoli is more than a grayhaired man of threescore and ten—he is infirm. Otherwise he would have gone to your bar to crush his enemies. _We owe him everything_—even the happiness of being a French Republic. He enjoys our constant trust. Revoke, as concerns him, your decree of the 2d of April, and restore joy to this whole people."... Soon after this, however, the young revolutionist completely quarrelled with Paoli; they became deadly enemies. The aged patriot found in the young man the most violent adversary, not of his person, but of his ideas. It is said that Paoli did not quite know him at that time, and had hinted to him that it was his intention to separate Corsica from France, and effect a connexion with England, that the indignant Napoleon did not conceal his anger, and that Paoli hereupon flew into a furious passion, and conceived the most violent hatred for his opponent. Pasquale's adherents were numerous, and the fortress of Ajaccio was in the hands of his friend Colonna. Paoli and Pozzo di Borgo, then procurator-general, cited before the Convention, defied the summons, and lived now under the ban of the Convention, and at open war with France. The three representatives now made Napoleon Inspector-general of Corsican Artillery, and instructed him to reduce the citadel of Ajaccio. He attempted it, but all his exertions to conquer the fortress of his native town were in vain. Destiny had planted no laurels for Napoleon in Corsica. During the siege, his life was on one occasion in extreme danger. He had occupied the Tower of Capitello with about fifty men, in order to operate from that point by land, while the vessels of war carried on the bombardment from the sea. A storm blew the fleet out of the gulf, and Napoleon remained cut off from it in the tower, where he had to defend himself for three days, living on horse-flesh, till some herdsmen from the mountains freed him from his perilous situation, and he succeeded in reaching the fleet.