Ajaccio, as one man, repels the partisans of France; and, a gale of wind springing up, Buonaparte and his men regain their boats with the utmost difficulty.

At a place hard by, he finds his mother, uncle, brothers and sisters.

Madame Buonaparte, with the extraordinary tenacity of will that characterized her famous son, had wished to defend her house at Ajaccio against the hostile populace; but, yielding to the urgent warnings of friends, finally fled to the nearest place of safety, and left the house to the fury of the populace, by whom it was nearly wrecked.
For a brief space Buonaparte clung to the hope of regaining Corsica for the Republic, but now only by the aid of French troops.

For the islanders, stung by the demand of the French Convention that Paoli should go to Paris, had rallied to the dictator's side; and the aged chief made overtures to England for alliance.

The partisans of France, now menaced by England's naval power, were in an utterly untenable position.