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The French chief minister Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury had no doubts as to how France needed to respond to the assaults and provocations of the rebels. In December, Boissieux received a letter from the minister informing him of the reinforcements already gathering in Antibes and added that the honor of France demanded that the actions of the Corsicans at Calenzana and elsewhere "do not go unpunished." The overall mission, however, remained unchanged, despite the repeated advice of Ambassador Jacques Campredon that the government should use the opportunity to conquer the island for itself. That was the deepest fear of the Genoese Commissioner-General Giovanni-Battista de Mari, but there was no real reason to worry. France had signed a treaty with the Emperor stipulating "that they will never suffer the Island of Corsica, under any Pretence whatsoever, to depart from the Government of the Republic of Genoa," and Fleury fully intended to honor it.

The other object of French ire was the Dutch Republic, which Fleury blamed for stiffening the resistance of the Corsicans and indirectly causing French blood to be spilled. The Spanish flag flown by Captain Pierre Keelmann had not fooled anyone, and the French ambassador Gabriel-Jacques de Salignac, Marquis de Fénelon, delivered a bitter letter of protest to the States General. "The Republic cannot now disagree," wrote Fénelon, "that such a proceeding and the impunity with which it was conducted would show little regard for the King and the friendship of His Majesty." The Dutch ambassador in Paris, Van Hoëy, was likewise summoned to hear the remonstrations of Paris. Until now the States General had received only the protests of the Genoese, which it had arrogantly dismissed, but France had to be handled more delicately.

The Dutch denied any contact with or support for Theodore, but in a statement to Fénelon the government questioned what business it was of France in the first place. If, the Dutch promised, there was a declared state of war between France and "the Corsicans," they would certainly not allow their nationals to support the enemies of His Most Christian Majesty with arms, but it appeared to them that this was not the case. It was a rather staggering claim, for it looked rather like de facto recognition of the Corsican state (if not Theodore explicitly) by the United Provinces—after all, one could not declare war on that which was not in some sense sovereign. Such a declaration would never come from France—it would enrage the Genoese, who would not abide such implied legitimacy for the rebel movement, but more importantly it would undermine the entire premise of the French intervention, to wit, the suppression of unlawful rebellion and the restoration of order to Genoese territory.

France was not to be outplayed by mere rhetorical tricks, and there were limits to how far the Dutch government was willing to go for the sake of a single private trading company. In February of 1739 the French succeeded in pressuring the States General to ban their citizens from having any commerce with the Corsican rebels. It had very little immediate impact on the syndicate, which even before Keelmann's somewhat disappointing report had been disposed to let the matter play out for a while and see how Theodore did with the vast armory they had sold him. Actually, one ship was sailing from Amsterdam with arms for the Corsicans at the very moment the agreement was published, but it was unlikely to be a liability to the Dutch government. Firstly, although probably financed in part by the syndicate it was formally the endeavor of Theodore's "nephew" Matthias von Drost, who was not a Dutch citizen; and secondly, Drost's plan did not involve sailing directly to Corsica, but taking his cargo to Livorno and smuggling it to the island in the traditional manner with small craft. In any case, it would eventually become clear that the States General had no intention of enforcing their pledge in a serious manner, and it is doubtful that this French "diplomatic success" meaningfully changed the course of the revolution.

December was to be the calm before the storm. Mountain snows kept many of the highland militias at home, the French reinforcements would not arrive until the following month, and Boissieux himself was taken ill for a time. In the Nebbio, Theodore did his best to prepare for what seemed likely to be a very serious fight. Attempts were made to revitalize the rather poorly implemented militia system, including shortening the time of rotation and requiring militia battalions to muster regularly at certain locations if they wished to receive munitions and pay for their officers. The "Royal Guard," finding a new glut of recruits, expanded to a nominal strength of 600 men in ten companies, and its name was changed to the "Corsican Guard" (Guardia Corsa), possibly to give it a more patriotic feel or to distinguish it from the Germanic Leibgarde (or Guardia del Corpo) which actually protected the person of the king.[1] Present too in the Nebbio was the Foreign Regiment (Reggimento Straniero), which had been placed under the overall command of Lieutenant-Colonel Karl Christian Drevitz, a former infantry officer of the little army of the Electorate of Cologne. He was only one of at least two dozen such "Colonesi" veterans who served Theodore—Cologne was the king's birthplace—and uniquely for foreign volunteers in Corsica, most of them seem to have continued to wear their blue Electoral uniforms in Corsican service, which was just as well since the king's green uniforms were in short supply.[B]

The dividends of the Vespers were not limited to guard recruitment. Despite Theodore's apprehensions about provoking the French, the outbreak of hostilities had an immediate effect on the "national consciousness." A new wave of patriotism swept the country, and although this ardor was really more for Corsica than its foreign king, Theodore could not help but be identified with the new spirit of resistance and he and his ministers made every effort to ensure it was so. Just like his landing in 1736, as if by magic, he had appeared in the nick of time with arms and supplies to secure the people's liberty, and his stately presence at the consulta left no doubt that regardless of what his actual sway over the islanders was his face and his name were clearly identified with the cause. Although it probably made Theodore flinch, as he was still trying in vain to smooth tensions with Boissieux, Costa wrote that the warcry of the rebels at Calenzana had been "Morte ài Francesi, Evvivu u Re" - Death to the French, Long Live the King.

Another salutary effect of this nationalist fervor was the total collapse of the indifferenti movement. The "indifferents" had long maintained that they were patriots, just not "Teodoresi;" they desired a Corsica free of both Genoa and the Baron Neuhoff. Accordingly, when the French had first arrived on the island, Ignazio Arrighi and the other indifferenti leaders had practically flung themselves at Boissieux. It seemed to be the moment they had been waiting for; a foreign power had arrived to take control of the island in opposition to both the tyrannical Genoa and the charlatan Theodore. Although now frequently depicted as treachery, the idea that French rule would be welcome alternative to that of Genoa had been a fairly uncontroversial stance earlier in the rebellion. Theodore's own prime minister, Luigi Giafferi, had been a leading member of the "pro-French" faction encouraged by Campredon prior to Theodore's arrival, and Theodore's deputies themselves had recently floated the idea of Corsica becoming a subject principality to the Bourbons.

At the very same time that Boissieux had been meeting with Theodore's emissaries, he had also been exchanging letters with Arrighi, who had assured the general of his support. He was to regret it, for having fully and prematurely committed themselves to the French cause the leaders of the indifferenti found the rug pulled out from under them when Boissieux made it abundantly clear that French power had come only to restore Genoese rule. For a time, Arrighi seems to have pretended this was not the case and petitioned Boissieux to encourage Versailles towards another policy (precisely what Theodore was doing at the same time). His hope of a French alternative was dashed to pieces, however, when the terms of Fontainebleau were made public. His vocally pro-French record now put him in the position of appearing to be a Genoese collaborator, and since the indifferenti had boycotted the consulta of Corti due to Theodore's presence there was nobody to speak in his favor when he, Father Giovanni Aitelli, and other indifferenti leaders were denounced by the consulta of Corti as traitors to the nation.

The leaders of the indifferenti turned to Boissieux for succor, but after the Vespers the general was not in a welcoming mood. He received their entreaties coldly, rejecting their clumsy attempts at re-negotiating the French position and making the same demand of them that he made of the other rebels: surrender your arms and submit to Genoese rule. Arrighi resisted, pleading that it was madness to disarm in the face of hostility from "the Baron's men," but Boissieux was unrelenting, and informed him that unless he and his militias surrendered their weapons to the French they would be treated as any other rebels. Arrighi, feeling his had no choice, caved to this demand, but immediately thereafter the royalist Marquis Luca d'Ornano published a decree countermanding Arrighi and offering his own ultimatum: all men of Vico had five days to come to the village of Guagno, with their arms, to surrender and pledge loyalty to the King, or be declared traitors to the nation in absentia. It was the last straw for Arrighi's authority, and he abandoned Vico for fear of being turned over to the royalists. Arrighi's last hope, that the French would establish control in the northwest first and rescue him from d'Ornano, was crushed when the French were defeated at Madonna della Serra.

Spurned by the French, abandoned by many of the locals, and pressed by vastly more numerous and better-armed royalist forces, Arrighi, Aitelli, and a handful of other indifferenti leaders surrendered themselves to the French.[2] Boissieux magnanimously offered them safe passage into exile as an alternative to Genoese "justice." All of them accepted. While this was hardly the end of anti-Theodore sentiment in Corsica, the indifferenti as a semi-cohesive, territory-holding faction had completely ceased to exist by the end of 1738. The Corsicans, or at least their leaders, were now in the main either realisti or filogenovesi.





Footnotes
[1] Sometimes called the Royal Corsican Guard (Guardia Corsa Reale) to distinguish them from the 17th century Corsican Guard of the Popes (Guardia Corsa Papale).
[2] Presumably either by boat to Calvi or overland to Ajaccio, as the royalist blockade of Calvi made a land approach to Boissieux's headquarters impossible.

Timeline Notes
[A] Benjamin Franklin's newspaper. The quote is lifted largely from a real quote regarding the Corsicans in the Gazette. Notably, the paper also printed an abridged list of the manifest of the syndicate fleet, claiming 24 guns and 9,000 muskets. In case you were wondering, it records the bombes de bois as "wooden shells."
[B] Drevitz is not fictional, but he is something of a partly-fictionalized or composite character. A certain Lieutentant-Colonel Drevitz indeed served in Corsica and was one of the rebel leaders who IOTL defeated Marchelli at Isola Rossa in 1738, and Germans wearing the uniforms of Electoral Cologne indeed showed up among the Corsican rebels around this time. There is no evidence that Drevitz was one of these men of Cologne, but it seems plausible. A number of Germans in rebel service pop up in these years, including a certain German drummer who was evidently chosen as one of the rebels' emissaries to a French commander. Most of them were probably there because of Theodore, either on account of a preexisting acquaintance with the king or his "nephews" or because they had been hired in Amsterdam or thereabouts by Theodore or Drost. "Karl Christian" is a random fabrication, as Drevitz's given name is not recorded.