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 on 7 Aug. 1764 by which the French promised their military aid to the Genoese for the space of four years. During those years Paoli vainly appealed to the European powers against the action of France. Count Marbœuf landed six battalions in the island in October 1764, and occupied most of the strong places. After four years of armed truce, diversified by the capture of Capraja by Paoli, both Genoese and patriots realised that their respective situations were untenable in the presence of a strong French force. By the treaty of Versailles, negotiated between Choiseul and the Genoese plenipotentiary Sorba on 15 May 1768, Genoa finally yielded up Corsica to France in consideration of the expense in which the French crown was involving itself by its efforts to reduce the island. The Paolists were naturally no party to the treaty, and they determined upon a vigorous resistance. Their defence of isolated situations was heroic, but the disproportion of forces did not admit of a doubtful issue to the contest. Large reinforcements reached the French from Toulon, to the number of twenty-two thousand men, under Count Vaux. A decisive battle took place on 9 May 1769 at Pontenuovo, and the Corsicans, after fighting heroically under the personal command of Paoli, were completely defeated. The French conquerors immediately afterwards entered Corte, and a little later on overran the whole island. Paoli retired to the neighbourhood of the parish church of Vivario with a few followers. Near Vivario the remnant of his army, reduced to 537 men, was surrounded by four thousand of the enemy. Paoli addressed a stirring harangue to his compatriots, urging them at the risk of a glorious death to cut their way during the night through the French troops. This they did, and, after lying concealed for two days in the ruins of a convent on the seashore, Paoli, with some of his friends, embarked on an English frigate at Porto Vecchio, and on 16 June 1769 was landed at Leghorn. He was received with the greatest enthusiasm, the English ships displaying their colours and discharging their artillery. A few days afterwards his brother Clement, with about three hundred other fugitives, including among them some of the most noted chiefs, reached Leghorn in another English vessel. The Italian princes received the exiles with great hospitality, the Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany assigning lands to such among them as chose to settle in his dominions. Many entered the service of the king of Sardinia, and a few others went to Minorca. Everywhere the Corsican refugees were received with respect and admiration. The total loss sustained by the French troops in conquering Corsica exceeded ten thousand men, of whom 4,324 were killed.

During Paoli's fourteen years' rule he virtually stamped out the vendetta, which for centuries had decimated the population. He promoted throughout the island agriculture, commerce, and other civil occupations. He established a university at Corte on 25 Nov. 1764, and a school in every village in Corsica. He organised an army; he formed a flotilla. His revenue was one million livres, or 40,000l. sterling, and he founded a mint at Murato (cf., Storia d'Italia, bk. 46).

On 21 Sept. 1769 Paoli arrived in London. Wesley records in his ‘Journal’ (iii. 370) that ‘the great Paoli landed in the dock at Portsmouth but a very few minutes after he (Wesley) had left the water-side;’ adding, ‘surely He who hath been with him from his youth up hath not sent him into England for nothing.’ On 10 Oct. Boswell, who had visited Paoli in Corsica and had published the first biography of the hero, presented him to Dr. Johnson, who observed to Boswell afterwards that ‘Paoli had the loftiest port of any man he had ever seen.’ The prime minister, the Duke of Grafton, obtained for the exile a pension of 1,200l. a year on the civil list, which the general enjoyed for twenty years. He was introduced at court, and graciously received by George III. Later on he was elected a member of The Club, where he became the intimate personal friend of the Johnsonian group, more particularly of Dr. Johnson himself, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, and Oliver Goldsmith.

Soon after the first outburst of the great French revolution, when the convention decreed that Corsica was thenceforth merely one of the departments of France, Mirabeau proposed, from the tribune of the National Assembly, that General Paoli should be recalled from exile to rule once more over Corsica. Resigning his pension before quitting England, Paoli repaired to his native land. Immediately on his arrival he was elected mayor of Bastia and commander-in-chief of the national guard. In April 1790 Paoli appeared at the bar of the National Assembly in Paris, where he was received with enthusiasm. He there delivered an address to the assembly, in the course of which he promised fidelity to the new order of things in France. On being presented to Louis XVI, Paoli was appointed by the king lieutenant-general and military commandant of Corsica. Returning to the island, he reasserted his authority and re-established his paternal rule. During the autumn of 1791 Napoleon Bonaparte, then in his twenty-