French Soldier and Corsican Patriot -- Paoli's Hesitancy -- His Return to Corsica -- Cross-Purposes in France -- A New Furlough -- Money Transactions of Napoleon and Joseph -- Open Hostilities Against France -- Address to the French Assembly -- The Bastia Uprising -- Reorganization of Corsican Administration -- Meeting of Napoleon and Paoli -- Corsican Politics -- Studies in Society. [Sidenote: 1790.] What was to be the future of one whose feelings were so hostile to the nation with the fortunes of which he now seemed irrevocably identified? There is no evidence that Buonaparte ever asked himself such disquieting questions. To judge from his conduct, he was not in the least troubled. Fully aware of the disorganization, both social and military, which was well-nigh universal in France, with two months more of his furlough yet unexpired, he awaited developments, not hastening to meet difficulties before they presented themselves. What the young democrats could do, they did. The town government was entirely reorganized, with a friend of the Buonapartes as mayor, and Joseph--employed at last!--as his secretary. A local guard was also raised and equipped. Being French, however, and not Corsican, Napoleon could not accept a command in it, for he was already an officer in the French army. But he served in the ranks as a common soldier, and was an ardent agitator in the club, which almost immediately reopened its doors. In the impossibility of further action there was a relapse into authorship. The history of Corsica was again revised, though not softened; the letters into which it was divided were addressed to Raynal. In collaboration with Fesch, Buonaparte also drew up a memoir on the oath which was required from priests. When Paoli first received news of the amnesty granted at the instance of Mirabeau, and of the action taken by the French Assembly, which had made Corsica a French department, he was delighted and deeply moved. His noble instincts told him at once that he could no longer live in the enjoyment of an English pension or even in England; for he was convinced that his country would eventually reach a more perfect autonomy under France than under the wing of any other power, and that as a patriot he must not fail even in appearance to maintain that position. But he also felt that his return to Corsica would endanger the success of this policy; the ardent mountaineers would demand more extreme measures for complete independence than he could take; the lowlanders would be angry at the attitude of sympathy with his old friends which he must assume. In a spirit of self-sacrifice, therefore, he made ready to exchange his comfortable exile for one more uncongenial and of course more bitter.