Paoli and Boswell, a friendship sealed by the Corsican dream

Created in 1768 by Henry Benbridge, this portrait of Pascal Paoli in a green suit bears witness to the links between the Corsican politician and the Scottish writer James Boswell.

When the young American painter Henry Benbridge painted this portrait of Pascal Paoli in 1768, commissioned by the Scottish writer and lawyer James Boswell, the two men had only known each other for three years. “The friendship between Paoli and Boswell began in 1765 in a rather comical way,” laughs historian Antoine-Marie Graziani, author of Pascal Paoli, père de la patrie corse (2002, éditions Taillandier). That year, Boswell made his Grand Tour, meeting Voltaire and above all Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau had been asked by Paoli to draft a constitution for the young Corsican Republic (1755-1769). The author of the Social Contract entrusted the young man, who wished to leave for the Isle of Beauty, with a letter of recommendation. Fortunately for him,” recounts Antoine-Marie Graziani, “when he arrived in Sollacaro, he was immediately held up by Paoli’s bodyguard, who had escaped numerous assassination attempts. Everyone relaxes when Boswell shows this letter and he can then meet Paoli”. He stayed only a few days on the island, but from this trip he drew his first book, État de la Corse, which was published in 1768 and enjoyed considerable acclaim in the English-speaking world, as far afield as the United States. “Their friendship was to last until the writer’s death in 1793. Boswell was to become a kind of agent seeking to push the British government to intervene in the conflict between France and Corsica.” État de la Corse was a real masterstroke for the writer. A bestseller at the time, with some 8 ,000 copies in print, the work gave Paoli’s struggle a tremendous echo : “All of Europe is Corsican !” enthused Voltaire. Paoli was also frequently mentioned in letters from Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, both of whom spearheaded the American Revolution that began in 1765. “Paoli saw the value of this relationship, which would enable him to play the British off against the French. But it wouldn’t work. The General de la Nation’s armies were defeated at the Battle of Ponte-Novo in May 1769. Paoli was forced to leave Corsica. Boswell welcomed him back to Great Britain with great fanfare. This English retreat, which lasted twenty-two years, was not synonymous with misfortune for the statesman. Paoli lived his best life with the English,” emphasizes the historian. Thanks to Boswell, he met all the cultural and political intelligentsia of the Empire, from King George III, who boarded him very comfortably, to the writer Samuel Johnson, Boswell’s father at heart and whose biography , The Life of Samuel Johnson, published in 1792, is considered a masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon literature. He also met the virtuoso painter Maria Cosway, with whom he kept up an abundant correspondence.” The letters Paoli and Boswell exchanged, preserved at Yale University, also shed light on their friendship. They have been published in Correspondance, 1780-1795 (Francis Beretti, Antoine-Marie Graziani, Editions Alain Piazzola, 2008). Henry Benbridge, considered the most Italian of the American painters of his generation, painted another portrait of Pascal Paoli, this time in a red suit, which is now in the Pascal-Paoli Museum in Morosaglia (Haute-Corse). Ours has a strong Anglo-Saxon influence, having belonged to the collection of John D. Rockefeller III, before joining a Corsican collection.