Under these circumstances, and considering the irritated state of feeling between France and Genoa, the Senate foresaw that it would have to give way to the Corsicans; it accordingly formed the resolution to sell its presumed claims upon the island to France.
The French minister, Choiseul, received the proposal with joy. The acquisition of so important an island in the Mediterranean seemed no inconsiderable advantage, and in some degree a compensation for the loss of Canada. The treaty was concluded at Versailles on the 15th of May 1768, and signed by Choiseul on behalf of France, and Domenico Sorba on behalf of Genoa. The Republic thus, contrary to all national law, delivered a nation, on which it had no other claim than that of conquest--a claim, such as it was, long since dilapidated--into the hands of a foreign despotic power, which had till lately treated with the same nation as with an independent people; and a free and admirably constituted state was thus bought and sold like some brutish herd. Genoa had, moreover, made the disgraceful stipulation that she should re-enter upon her rights, as soon as she was in a position to reimburse the expenses which France had incurred by her occupation of the island.
Before the French expedition quitted the harbours of Provence, rumours of the negotiations, which were at first kept secret, had reached Corsica. Paoli called a Consulta at Corte; and it was unanimously resolved to resist France to the last and uttermost, and to raise the population _en masse_. Carlo Bonaparte, father of Napoleon, delivered a manly and spirited speech on this occasion.
Meanwhile, Count Narbonne had landed with troops in Ajaccio; and the astonished inhabitants saw the Genoese colours lowered, and the white flag of France unfurled in their stead. The French still denied the real intention of their coming, and amused the Corsicans with false explanations, till the Marquis Chauvelin landed with all his troops in Bastia, as commander-in-chief.
The four years' treaty of occupation was to expire on the 7th August of the same year, and on that day it was expected hostilities would commence. But on the 30th of July, five thousand French, under the command of Marboeuf, marched from Bastia towards San Fiorenzo, and after some unsuccessful resistance on the part of the Corsicans, made themselves masters of various points in Nebbio. It thus became clear that the doom of the Corsicans had been pronounced. Fortune, always unkind to them, had constantly interposed foreign despots between them and Genoa; and regularly each time, as they reached the eve of complete deliverance, had hurled them back into their old misery.