He never married; his people were his family. His only niece, the daughter of his brother Clemens, was married to a Corsican called Barbaggi. But Paoli himself, capable of all the virtues of friendship, was not without a noble female friend, a woman of talent and glowing patriotism, to whom the greatest men of the country confided their political ideas and plans. This Corsican Roland, however, kept no _salon_; she was a nun, of the noble house of Rivarola. A single circumstance evinces the ardent sympathy of this nun for the patriotic struggles of her countrymen; after Achille Murati's bold conquest of Capraja, she herself, in her exultation at the success of the enterprise, went over to the island, as if to take possession of it in the name of Paoli. Many of Pasquale's letters are addressed to the Signora Monaca, and are altogether occupied with politics, as if they had been written to a man.
The incredible activity of Paoli appears from his collected letters. The talented Italian Tommaseo (at present living in exile in Corfu) has published a large volume containing the most important of these. They are highly interesting, and exhibit a manly, vigorous, and clear intellect. Paoli disliked writing--he dictated, like Napoleon; he could not sit long, his continually active mind allowed him no rest. It is said of him that he never knew the date; that he could read the future, and that he frequently had visions.
Paoli's memory is very sacred with his people. Napoleon elates the soul of the Corsican with pride, because he was his brother; but when you name the name of Paoli, his eye brightens like that of a son, at the mention of a noble departed father. It is impossible for a man to be more loved and honoured by a whole nation after his death than Pasquale Paoli; and if posthumous fame is a second life, then Corsica's and Italy's greatest man of the eighteenth century lives a thousandfold--yes, lives in every Corsican heart, from the tottering graybeard who knew him in his youth, to the child on whose soul his high example is impressed. No greater name can be given to a man than "Father of his country." Flattery has often abused it and made it ridiculous; among the Corsicans I saw that it could also be applied with truth and justice.