PASQUALE, a great patriot and legislator, was the younger son of Giacinto Paoli, and was born at the village of Rostino in Corsica in 1726. His training was such as became one who was destined to be a great benefactor to his country. Born in a family of patriots, and at a time when the Corsicans were struggling for independence, the young boy imbibed with his opening faculties a strong love of freedom. Then removing at the age of fourteen with his exiled father to Naples, he received the most thorough discipline which that city could give. In the school of Genovesi, the eminent political economist, he learned humanistic philosophy; in the Neapolitan army he became acquainted with military tactics; and in the pages of his favourite classical authors he caught the spirit which animated the great citizens of antiquity. Thus prepared with the high accomplishments of a ruler, Paoli, in 1755, was summoned by his fellow-countrymen to be their general, and he immediately entered upon the great work of his life. It now became his task to reform a people, rude, unlettered, torn by hereditary feuds, living under wild sword-law, and exasperated by a long-continued struggle for liberty. His first measure was to reconcile them to authority. For this purpose, wandering forth among them, he brought all the qualities of his noble nature into play. His graceful and princely bearing won their hearts, his gentle eloquence captivated their understandings, and his calm energy of character awed them into submission. Paoli's next endeavour was to organize a government. Accordingly, he brought into operation a democratic administration at once simple and self-sufficient. The citizens above the age of twenty-five elected a legislative assembly called the Consulta; the Consulta nominated out of its members an executive body called the Supreme Council; and the Supreme Council acknowledged the general of the nation as its president. Any contested judicial sentence was referred to a censorship of five; and any abuse of power was punished by a decree of the people. Having established law and order, Paoli next employed the influence of the government to bring the nation under the agencies of civilization. Agriculture was promoted; manufactories were put in motion; a national printing-press was instituted; and on the 3d January 1765 a Corsican university was opened. Paoli now began to see the results of his legislation. As the Corsicans grew wealthier and more enlightened, they became stronger and more inspirited. A militia which they organized beat back the Genoese from the interior of the island, and hemmed them in within a few seaport-towns. A fleet which they built took up the offensive against their foes, and captured in 1767 the island of Capraja. At the same time, they were becoming devotedly attached to the civil administration. Their general was regarded as the saviour of his country. As he walked out among his people, old men blessed him, and women held up their children to see the man who had made the nation happy. This fair fabric of prosperity which Paoli was rearing was not, however, destined to be completed. On the 15th of May 1768 the Genoese, having lost all hope of ever reconquering Corsica, sold their right over the island to the French. The small nation of the Corsicans, just emerging from barbarism, was thus involved in a losing struggle with one of the great powers of the earth. In vain did the natives for some time with desperate valour check the advance of the forces under Marboeuf and Chauvelin; in vain did they rout the invaders at the bridge of Golo and at Borge. A reinforced army, under a new general, De Vaux, advanced against them in the beginning of 1769. After a struggle of three days, they were driven from their camp at Murat; and on the 9th May of that year their cause was irretrievably ruined by the decisive battle of Ponte Nuovo. The wise magnanimity of Pasquale Paoli now appeared in greater prominence than ever. Unlike the old tragic heroes, he thought it better, in a contest with destiny, to give way for a little, and remain upon guard, than to offer an unyielding resistance, and be crushed beneath her inevitable blow. His first step, therefore, was to leave the island and retire to Leghorn. Then, finding refuge in England, he lived for twenty years in London, taking no part in the political intrigues of the day, keeping a thoughtful silence, and waiting for an opportunity to benefit his enslaved country. At length the events of the French Revolution restored Paoli to Corsica, and to an important place in its administration. At first he acted as lieutenant-general and military commandant of the island under the government of France. Then, becoming shocked with the lawless and sanguinary procedure of the Convention in Paris, he organized an anti-French party, and called in the assistance of the English. His cause was victorious; the garrisons of France were driven out of the island; and in 1794 Corsica, with the consent of the natives, was united to Great Britain. The reward which Paoli received for these services was little more than neglect. The office of viceroy of the country, which should have been conferred on him, was conferred upon Sir Gilbert Elliot. He was even prevented, for reasons of state, from passing the closing years of his life in the fatherland he had loved so well. He was called to England in 1795, and died there on the 5th February 1807.

Paoli, Clements, the elder brother of the preceding, was born in 1715, and, like the rest of his family, began at an early age to take an active part in the struggles of his country. His character was that of a saintly hero of the old Hebrew type,—fervent in prayer and mighty in battle. Although he was one of the Corsican generals, and although he might have held a high office in the government of his brother, he preferred to assume the garb of a monk and the uniform of a common soldier. To fight and to pray became the sole desires of his heart. At the sound of the coming battle he rose from his knees to rush into the field; in the thick of the conflict he fought like a lion, grimly muttering prayers for the souls whom he sent in rapid succession into another world; and when his bloody work was done, he returned to his cell with a pious countenance to resume his interrupted devotions. Thus did this praying soldier in the wars of the Corsicans become the champion of the national cause, the chief hero in an army of heroes. It was he who drove the Genoese from the district of Orezza; who carried San Pellegrino and San Fiorenzo; who kept Furlani for fifty-six days, until the village became a heap of ashes around him; who routed the disciplined troops of France at the famous battle of Borgo. Nor, after his country's independence had been lost on the fatal day of Ponte Nuovo, did his holy valour suffer abatement. Retiring to a solitary cloister near "the brooks of Vallombrosa," he continued for twenty years to pray and wait for the hour when he might draw his sword once more in Corsica's behalf. He had returned to the island an aged man, yet anxious to play a part in the restoration of national freedom, when he died in 1793 in the convent of his native Rostino. (Wanderings in Corsica, translated from the German of Gregorovius by Alexander Muir, in 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1855; and Boswell's Account of Corsica.)