The English immediately took possession of the island, and retained it
for two years. The fickle Corsicans soon grew weary of their new
masters, in whose language, manners, and religion they found no
congeniality, and a general rising took place. A small force from France
effected a landing, notwithstanding the vigilance of the English
cruisers. Beacon fires, the signals of insurrection, by previous
concert, blazed from every hill, and the hoarse sound of the horn,
echoing along the mountain sides and through the ravines, summoned the
warlike peasants to arms. The English were driven from the island with
even more precipitation than they had taken possession of it. Paoli
retired with them to London, deeply regretting that he had not followed
the wise counsel of young Napoleon. Bonaparte never visited Corsica
again. He could not love the _people_ in whose defense he had suffered
such injustice. To the close of life, however, he retained a vivid
recollection of the picturesque beauties of his native island, and often
spoke, in most animating terms, of the romantic glens, and precipitous
cliffs, and glowing skies endeared to him by all the associations of
childhood. The poetic and the mathematical elements were both combined
in the highest degree in the mind of Napoleon, and though his manly
intellect turned away in disgust from mawkish and effeminate
sentimentalism, he enjoyed the noble appreciation of all that is
beautiful, and all that is sublime. His retentive memory was stored with
the most brilliant passages from the tragedies of Corneille, Racine, and
Voltaire, and no one could quote them with more appropriateness.