It is evident that the schism which finally separated Buonaparte and Paoli originated in their divergence of views regarding the French Revolution.

Paoli accepted revolutionary principles only in so far as they promised to base freedom on a due balance of class interests.

He was a follower of Montesquieu.

He longed to see in Corsica a constitution similar to that of England or to that of 1791 in France.

That hope vanished alike for France and Corsica after the fall of the monarchy; and towards the Jacobinical Republic, which banished orthodox priests and guillotined the amiable Louis, Paoli thenceforth felt naught but loathing: "We have been the enemies of kings," he said to Joseph Buonaparte; "let us never be their executioners." Thenceforth he drifted inevitably into alliance with England.
Buonaparte, on the other hand, was a follower of Rousseau, whose ideas leaped to power at the downfall of the monarchy.