Ajaccio was at that time the centre of the Corsican revolutionists; the house of the Bonapartes their place of meeting; the two brothers, Joseph and Napoleon, undisputed leaders of the democracy. The little town was in a state of wild uproar. The commotion appeared to General Barrin, at that time in command of the island, of a threatening character; and he sent Gaffori's son, Marshal Francesco Gaffori, to check it. Gaffori was by no means successful in this; on the contrary, he was glad to find hospitality and protection in the house of Bacciocchi, afterwards Prince of Lucca and Piombino. Napoleon and Joseph, meanwhile, assembled the democratic party in the Church of San Francesco, and prepared a congratulatory address to the Constituent Assembly, which contained at the same time the bitterest complaints of the oppressive character of the existing administration in Corsica, and expressed an urgent wish that the island should be declared an integral part of France. Napoleon understood his time: renouncing his Corsican patriotism, he became decidedly French, and threw himself into the arms of the Revolution. He returned to Valence in 1789; and soon after he is again in Ajaccio, where the active Joseph, while the national guard was in the process of formation, was zealously exerting himself to obtain an officer's commission. Marius Peraldi, the richest man in Ajaccio, and an enemy of the Bonaparte family, was made colonel of the national guard, and Joseph an officer. It had in the meantime been proposed in Corsica to recall the exiles; and by the exertions of the two brothers Bonaparte and the Abbot Coti, the Corsican General Assembly was induced to name four deputies, who were to meet Paoli in France, and conduct him to the island. Among these was Marius Peraldi, and both Napoleon and Joseph accompanied the deputation. When Paoli arrived in Paris, the Constituent Assembly had already (1st December 1789) incorporated Corsica with France, by a decree which for ever put an end to the political independence of the island. Mirabeau and Saliceti—Corsican deputy for the Third Estate, afterwards the celebrated statesman, and minister of Murat in Naples—proposed the resolution.