If Louis XVI's luck had run out, it was beginning to turn Napoleon's
way. A new government decree, on 17 August, ordered the dissolution of
all religious houses and the confiscation and sale of their assets. Since St
Cyr was no more, Elisa had to leave for Corsica, but the college directors,
by now terrified of their own shadows, refused to allow her to leave
without two sets of orders, one from the municipality and another from
the Versailles directorate. Napoleon therefore persuaded the local mayor,
a M. Aubrun, to go to th e college with him. Elisa then made a solemn
declaration that she needed her brother to escort her back to Corsica.
Aubrun copied this down, then endorsed the copy with his own affidavit
that permission was necessary. Napoleon then took the document to
Versailles and requested that the directorate pay travelling expenses.
Amazingly, Versailles voted the sum of 352 livres (which represented one
livre for every league of the distance between Versailles and Ajaccio) and
authorized him to remove his sister, together with her clothes and linen.
Napoleon's trip to Paris therefore ended in total triumph. He had
cleared his name, won promotion and back pay, had avoided the necessity
to return to his regiment and was now returning to Corsica with all
expenses paid. The details of his journey are unknown, but it is probable
that he left Paris on 9 September, as soon as the War Minister had
ratified his promotion, took the water coach at Lyons to Valence, then
stayed at Marseilles for the best part of a month before embarking for
Corsica from Toulon on about IO October, arriving at Ajaccio on 15
October.
Once in Corsica Napoleon proceeded to Corte to rejoin his volunteer
battalion. Shortly after his arrival he had an interview with Paoli, which
left both men dissatisfied. Paoli again turned down a Bonaparte request,
this time that Lucien be appointed his aide-de-camp. Coming so soon
after Joseph's defeat by the partisans of Pozzo di Borgo in recent
elections, this was a very clear confirmation of the rum our that Paoli had
been won over by the Pozzo di Borgos. For his part, Paoli was animated
by a number of considerations. He never cared for the Bonapartes,
disliked Joseph and was merely irritated by the young Napoleon's
excessive admiration; most of all, he thought the entire clan a set of
political trimmers and had never forgiven Carlo for his too-rapid
defection to the French after q6g. At the ideological level, Napoleon's
Jacobinism, contrasting with Paoli's growing disenchantment with
revolutionary France, made them unlikely bedfellows.
Napoleon came away from the interview injured in his pride and
needing time to lick his wounds and take stock. He began to feel that all