The article published by this newspaper on Sunday on the discovery of a new document relating to Vassalli carried Professor Frans Ciappara's explanation that "that in 1796, while preparing to print the second volume of the Leixcon, Vassalli was forced to leave Rome to escape Napoleon, who he referred to as a 'scatter-brained warrior'".

There are (at least) two problems here.

One, in Napoleonic studies there is a rule. Napoleon Bonaparte before his ascension to the throne is referred to as "Napoleon Bonaparte", or simply "Bonaparte"; after his ascension to the throne as "Napoleon" or "Napoleon I". (His detractors kept calling him "Bonaparte" even after he was enthroned, some persisting in calling him "Buonaparte" to emphasise his Corsican origins. His staunch followers kept calling him "Emperor" even after his fall.)

Because Professor Ciappara flippantly refers to "Napoleon", where he should have referred to "Bonaparte", he misleads a part of his audience.

Two, "scatter-brained warrior" is a mistranslation.

One can read, from the document the photo of which was graciously given to you by Olvin Vella, president of the Akkademja tal-Malti, the relevant passage: Vassalli was "costretto di ritirarsi all'improviso da Roma per isfuggire il trambusto guerriero che in quella stagion minacciava tutta l'Italia".

But "trambust oguerriero" is not "gwerrier gerfuxi" ("scatter-brained warrior"). Ciappara is taking guerriero as a noun and trambusto as an adjective. Unfortunately, he is not right. Trambusto ("turmoil") is only a noun in Italian. Guerriero, on the other hand, can be both noun ("warrior") and adjective ("relating to war").

Trambusto guerriero does not mean a scatter-brained warrior (gwerrier gerfuxi) but the turmoil caused by war (it-tgerfix tal-gwerra).

Vassalli is just saying that he had to leave Rome because of the turmoil of war which threatened to engulf all of Italy at the time. There's no judgment on Bonaparte.

Apart from the meaning of words, there is no reason why Vassalli should have put the adjective before the noun, as Professor Ciappara (mistakenly) believes. The document's nature clearly indicates that such a stylistic choice would have been out of place.

Furthermore, this was a call for expressions of interest - whoever wanted a copy of the new edition of Vassalli's dictionary was being invited to join the nascent association, and only members would finally acquire a copy. It is illogical to presume that Vassalli, whose financial situation was dire, would want to antagonise any potential clients who still harboured pro-Emperor sentiments.

In other words, Vassalli did not criticise Napoleon as Professor Ciappara is claiming. First, because the French General was still not Emperor of the French in 1796, and secondly, why should Vassalli criticise the man who, upon setting foot in Malta, declared Vassalli Malta's greatest son?

Napoleon Bonaparte exerted an astounding fascination on many people. For instance, former French Ambassador Daniel Randeau tells us that Guido de Marco once told him, "If I had been a 20-year-old in Valletta in 1798, I must admit I do not know what I would have done. Or rather, I do know. I would have followed him."Dom Mintoff's point of reference was 1789, not 1917. And so on.

But to return to Professor Frans Ciappara. He also stated he "would definitely love to have some certainty on whether [Vassalli] was a Protestant or not". He mentions that "we are sure he got married to a Protestant in France, but there are questions on whether his marriage was legitimate."

I think Professor Ciappara is, together with Olvin Vella and others, trying to sanitize Vassalli's memory. Otherwise, I cannot find a plausible explanation for this idée fixe of wanting to save Vassalli from the chimera they think certain narrations have made of him. This group is misleading a well-known publishing house into the blind alley of publishing books of dubious historical value, promoting half-baked ideas based on ideology rather than real history.

I will not say that I exclude a priori that Vassalli was a Protestant. But to me it seems that all historical indicators point elsewhere.

First of all, Professor Ciappara himself admits that a friend of Vassalli made it clear that Vassalli was not a Protestant. On what basis doesn't Ciappara believe Vassalli's friend?

Secondly, the French Revolution and the Enlightenment were intimately intertwined with Freemasonry. Isn't it more probable that Vassalli was a Freemason (and therefore sospetto?) rather than a Protestant?

Thirdly, as a convert to the ideas and ideals of the Revolution and the Enlightenment, isn't it probable that Vassalli embraced the deism of the two movements? It was very fashionable in the 18^th century to be a deist. And a Freemason.

Freemasonry in France took long to let go of its deism. These are not secrets. I am quoting from books which describe not only the role of Freemasonry in the building of modern Europe but also the intellectual developments within Freemasonry itself.

My interest is Western European Legal History (which I studied at the University of London). I have found these references to Freemasonry and the Enlightenment in most legal history books. For instance, in his A History of European Law, Paolo Grossi writes: "The thinkers of the Enlightenment had little regard either for the customs or for jurists. We should not forget that 18^th century intellectuals tended to be aristocrats, often belonging to Masonic lodges or other exclusive groupings" (p. 66).Grossi then explains how this exclusive thinking affected legal thinking.

There are many other sources I could quote, even purely historical ones, but I do not want to bore you with these technicalities. The point is that Vassalli's age was coloured by Freemasonry and its inherent resistance to Rationalism. This was indeed a great paradox of that century - a century which vacillated between Rationalism on the one hand, and the "irrationality" of secret and esoteric societies on the other. This was the century of Cagliostro, who created his own "Egyptian" Freemasonry and mesmerised (I used this word purposely) the potentates of his age as well as the common people. We understand 18^th-century Europe (Vassalli's Europe) only if we understand that all social classes in that century accepted Cagliostro as a public figure to whom it was legitimate to devote attention.

At first the authorities of the ancient régime were wary of Freemasonry - they could not understand how it could be that a Duke would attend the meetings of a secret club which also accepted merchants and other commoners. But, even though they sensed a certain threat to the status quo, the authorities could not find anything illegal in such fashionable clubs. Even more so when the number of aristocrats who joined them grew dramatically, and somebody like Cagliostro - the founder of a new Masonic Order - was publicly known as a close friend of the powerful Cardinal de Rohan-Guéménée (kinsman to Malta's Grand Master de Rohan-Polduc) and other powerful people. Even here in Malta, there were Masonic lodges composed of Knights of St John and Maltese members.

Furthermore, at first the Catholic Church was not averse to Freemasonry, perceiving it as an ally (unholy, but still) against the onslaught of rationalism. It was later that the Church took a definitive stand against Freemasonry, and this because Freemasonry embraced deism.

Deism is the belief that there is a God (whom the Freemasons call "The Great Architect of the Universe") who is the Creator, but is not a personal God. This latter idea is theist, and is the idea of all Christian denominations (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism ... ).

Why should Vassalli shift from a deist position to a theist one? And for that matter, to Protestantism? Then again, to which Protestantism did Vassalli shift, in Professor Ciappara's view? Did he embrace Lutheranism or did he become a Huguenot? Or a Calvinist? What relations existed between the different Protestant denominations in early 19^th century France and Malta?

In my humble view - as I have told Professor Ciappara privately - Vassalli was in dire financial straits and needed anybody's help merely to survive. The local Catholic establishment was probably not very willing; Vassalli had in the past not only changed his mind on the priesthood but also been a fervent follower of the Great Revolution, the arch-enemy of Catholics. Asking for services at Notary Molinos' office can be understood as a device to receive tacit British protection against local Catholics. This was pure funambulism by Vassalli - Vassalli, the former supporter of Revolutionary France, needed the protection of the British in Malta against the Catholics in Malta. He probably went to the Protestants because he must have reasoned that the enemy of his enemy was his friend.

The trambusto guerriero he escaped from in Rome, Vassalli found here in Malta, albeit on another level.

Let me conclude by sharing with you a small insight. A couple of decades after Napoleon's death, the painter Delaroche tried to demythify the figure of the Emperor. Delaroche's efforts were harshly criticised, even by British art critics, one of whom said: It must be confessed that Delaroche is an artist of talent rather than a genius. Education and diligent study qualified him to be a painter, but not an artist, in the true sense of that word. For he has failed in the true mission of the artist - that of advancing the education of the masses; when it was in his power to give an impulse, he yielded to it; he has been a reflection, but not a light; and instead of elevating the public to himself, he has lowered himself to the public.

Dr Sammut is the author, or co-author, of four books on history and on law (published in Malta and the UK), and of several articles on history of law. He is also a casual lecturer on History of Legislation at the University of Malta, and a member of the Malta Historical Society.