Corsica

“ About eight o'clock in the morning I set out from Sartene to Bonifazio, the most southerly town and fortress in Corsica. The road lay along a desolate coast, the hills sloping gradually towards the sea-shore. There is not a village to be seen all the way; and I should have perished from hunger and thirst, had not my travelling companions taken care to furnish themselves with bread and wine before setting out. Who not his bread with joy has eaten, by olive gray or vine-tree seated, He knows you not, ye heavenly powers! ”

“ This gentleman accurately quoted Rousseau's prediction on Corsica, which it is impossible to escape hearing when in conversation with educated Corsicans.
The strait becomes more and more beautiful as the sun-set light begins to fall upon it. Sailing-boats flit past, breasting the waves; they pass into the distance with the golden gleam of the setting sun upon them; isolated rocks tower darkly out of the water, and the mountains of Sardinia are tinged with violet. ”

“ The feeling of nationality still lingers in Corsica, though without an object, without a hope. Men such as Antoine, the mountaineers, the shepherds,—all true-hearted Corsicans treasure up the traditions of former times, and, with the scene before his eyes, Antoine traced the action of Ponte Nuovo with as lively an enthusiasm, as deep an interest, as if it had been an affair of yesterday, in which he had borne a part. ”

“ The difference between the scenery of the island and the shores which they have left is very striking. Instead of the rocky mountains of the Cornice, intolerably dry and barren at their summits, but covered at their base with villages and ancient towns and olive-fields, Corsica presents a scene of solitary and peculiar grandeur. ”

“ If we reflect on the number of great men that Corsica has produced within the space of scarcely a hundred years, we cannot but be astonished that an island so small, and so thinly populated, is yet so rich in extraordinary minds. ”

“ Corsica is so small that from its highest point one can see almost all over the island. It is only about three times the size of Yorkshire. As the island is approached by steamer, it appears from every point of view something like an ocean of granite, a mass of rock-waves. High up on the crests of some of the granite billows small villages can be seen, themselves resembling a heap of rocks more than anything else. ”

“ Crushed but not quelled, ruined but not disheartened, decimated but never terrified, the Corsican nature, strong and simple, remained true to its universal instinct, the principle which was their very life and being, and which they imbibed with their mother's milk—love of country and love of liberty. ”

“ A glance at a map is sufficient to convince us that Corsica is a dependency of Italy, for while abyssal depths of more than 500 fathoms separate it from Provence, it is joined to the coast of Tuscany by a submarine plateau, the mountains of which rise above the surface of the waters as islands. The climate and natural productions of the island are those of Italy, and the language of its inhabitants is Italian. ”

“ These Corsican women have as yet no notion of the arts and sciences; they read no romances, they play the cithern in the twilight, and sing a melancholy vocero—a beautiful dirge, which, perhaps, they themselves improvise. But in the little circle of their ideas and feelings, their nature remains vigorous and healthy as the nature that environs them—chaste, and pious, and self-balanced, capable of all noble sacrifice, and such heroic resolves, as the poetry of civilisation preserves to all time as the highest examples of human magnanimity.
Antigone and Iphigenia can be matched in Corsica. ”

“ The French Government, utterly powerless against the defiant Corsican spirit, most justly deserves reproach for allowing an island which possesses the finest climate; districts of great fertility; a position commanding the entire Mediterranean between Spain, France, Italy, and Africa; and the most magnificent gulfs and harbours; which is rich in forests, in minerals, in healing springs, and in fruits, and is inhabited by a brave, spirited, highly capable people—for allowing Corsica to become a Montenegro or Italian Ireland. ”

“ Charming as the natural landscapes are in Corsica, one finds most of the villages, however picturesque at a distance, on a nearer approach, a conglomeration of tall, shapeless houses, black and frowning, with windows guarded by rusty iron grilles, and generally unglazed. ”

“ In the north of Europe we know little more of Corsica than that Napoleon was born there, that Pasquale Paoli struggled heroically there for freedom, and that the Corsicans practise hospitality and the Vendetta, and are the most daring bandits. ”

“ Here indeed, there is full scope for all parties; since those periods are so obscure, that every writer may fill them up according to the turn of his imagination; just as people who are abroad in a dark night, may with equal keenness, and equal appearance of reason affirm, that they see objects totally different.
Let Corsica have been the property of the Phenicians, the Etruscans, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Goths, the Saracens: let it have been a conquest of France; a gift from that kingdom to the pope; a gift again from the pope to the Pisans, and at length a conquest of Genoa ”

“ For five-and-twenty years now, with unimportant interruptions, have the French been in possession of the island of Corsica; and they have neither succeeded in healing the ever open wound of the Corsican people, nor have they, with all the means that advanced culture places at their disposal, done anything for the country, beyond introducing a few very trifling improvements. The island that has twice given France her Emperor, and twice dictated her laws, has gained nothing by it but the satisfaction of her revenge. ”

“ They will confider that I am the first Briton who has had the curiosity to visit Corsica, and to receive such information as to enable him to form a just idea of it; and they will readily make allowance for the enthusiasm of one who has been among the brave islanders, when their patriotick virtue is at its height, and who has felt as it were a communication of their spirit. ”

“ The first thing that strikes us on reading a history of Corsica is that, though the people live upon a small island, they have never acted as so many other island races have done. We never hear of Corsican sailors setting forth on voyages of adventure or exploration. There is no record of them invading the lands of their neighbours, either upon the islands or upon the shores of the Mediterranean. They do not appear to have practised piracy, preying upon the ships that passed their very doors as they carried the goods of other countries to and fro across the waters. ”

“ Since the French occupied Corsica they have done much for the island by improving its harbours and making good roads, and endeavouring to mitigate the ferocity of the people. But they have many things to contend against, and Corsica is still behind the other provinces of France. The people are idle, haughty, umbrageous, fiery, quarrelsome, fond of gipsy life, and retentive through generations of old feuds and prejudices to an almost inconceivable extent. ”

“ The Corsican historian says, in the eleventh book of his history, "If patriotism has ever been known at any time, and in any country of the world, to exercise power over men, truly we may say that in the island of Corsica it has been mightier than anywhere else; for I am altogether amazed and astounded that the love of the inhabitants of this island for their country has been so great, as at all times to prevent them from coming to a firm and voluntary determination to emigrate. ”

“ But however melancholy the condition of Corsica may be in an industrial and a commercial point of view, its limited population protects it at least from the scourge of pauperism, which, in the opulent and cultivated countries of the Continent, can show mysteries of a much more frightful character than those of bandit-life and the Vendetta. ”

“ Men here, though excited by political faction, live, as far as regards overt acts of violence, as if they were the most intimate friends: they are benevolent, sensible, generous in all things; and they are happy under a constitution than which there can be no better. This city is a world; and it is without doubt a finer town than all the rest put together. Fleets seem to enter its river every moment; I believe that Rome was neither greater nor richer. What we in Corsica reckon in paoli, people here reckon in guineas, that is, in louis-d'ors. ”

“ Although you still remain in peaceful possession of your country, which is much more than you deserve, yet I am not able to see that it must therefore go equally well with you in Corsica, where the people, having their eyes open, stand by their just demands, and feel themselves constrained to throw the yoke from their neck. ”

“ Prostrate under [68] famine, pestilence, and the ravages of war; unceasingly harassed by the Moors; robbed of her rights and her liberty by the Genoese; oppressed, plundered; the courts of justice venal; torn by the factions of the Blacks and Reds; bleeding at a thousand places from family feuds and the Vendetta; the entire land one wound—such is the picture of Corsica in those days—an island blessed by nature with all the requisites for prosperity. ”

“ The Corsican is decidedly an Italian; his language is acknowledged to be one of the purest dialects of Italian, his nature, his soil, his history, still link the lost son to his old mother-country. The French feel themselves strange in the island, and both soldiers and officials consider their period of service there as a "dreary exile in the isle of goats." The Corsican does not even understand such a temperament as the French—for he is grave, taciturn, chaste, consistent, thoroughly a man, and steadfast as the granite of his country. ”

“ Corsica, as in Italy—the various families of which held sway throughout the island. This aristocracy was only in a very limited degree of native origin. Italian magnates who had fled from the barbarians, Longobard, Gothic, Greek or Frankish vassals, soldiers who had earned for themselves land and feudal title by their exertions in the wars against the Moors, gradually founded houses and hereditary seigniories. The Corsican chronicler makes all the seigniors spring from the Roman knight Hugo Colonna and his companions. ”

“ Since the expulsion of the English, the French have remained in undisturbed possession of Corsica. The English occupation lasted from 1794 to 1796.
Character.
The Corsicans look to the Government for the improvement of their island far more than to their own efforts, for they themselves are neither industrious nor enterprising. The roads, railways, bridges and other public works are constructed chiefly by Italian labourers. The women do the drudgery both in their homes and on the fields, carrying great loads on their heads, as the mules do on their backs ”

“ An allusion has been drawn from the iron mines, and the name of Corsica, to the character of its inhabitants. Hieronymus de Marinis, a Genoese, who writes on the dominion and government of the republick, says of this island: 'Terrae viscera ferri fodinis affluunt, naturae cum ipso Corsicae nomine in uno conspirantis praejudicio, Corsi enim corde funt ferreo, adeoque ad sicam armaque prono [27] . The bowels of the earth abound in mines of iron; nature conspiring, by a fort of prejudice, to form a similarity between the name [28] of Corsica and the temper of the people ”

“ You never see a Corsican woman's hair, which is a pity, as there is reason to believe it is often pretty and luxuriant.
Every Corsican carries a huge cotton umbrella—red, green, or brilliant blue—both for the heavy rains and for protection from the sun.
Our first view of the Hotel de France somewhat appalled us. The street in which it is situated is a fine one—the finest in Corsica—wide and full of handsome houses; but the entrance to the hotel was mean and dark, and the outside decidedly dirty. ”

“ During his residence in Sartene, the king, at the request of the nobles of the region, conferred with lavish hand the titles of Count, Baron, and Baronet, and with these the representatives of the houses of Ornano, Istria, Rocca, and Leca, went home comforted.
While the king thus acted in kingly fashion, and filled the island with counts and cavaliers, as if poor Corsica had overnight become a wealthy empire, the bitterest cares of state were preying upon him in secret. ”

“ Corsica is remarkably well furnished with good harbours, so that we may apply to it what Florus says of the Campania, 'Nihil hospitalius mari [4] . Nothing more hospitable to the sea.' It has on the north Centuri. On the west San Fiorenzo, Isola Rossa, Calvi, Ajaccio. On the South it has Bonifaccio. And on the east Porto Vecchio, Bastia, and Macinajo. ”

“ Corsica certainly has a character of its own; it resembles no other island that I know. It is fertile, and might be more fertile yet if its native inhabitants chose to work. But the Corsican is haughty and indolent, he does not care to work in his forests or to do a hand's turn off his own family property. Even in that he grows no cereal crops to speak of; it is easier to sit and watch the olive ripen and the vineyards colour their fruit. They rear horses and cattle, asses and mules, and sometimes hunt in the hills for pigs or goats, or the wild black sheep. ”

“ III. TABLE OF CONTENTS
289 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.
The island of Corsica, sublimely picturesque with its wild ravines and rugged mountains, emerges from the bosom of the Mediterranean Sea, about one hundred miles from the coast of France. It was formerly a province of Italy, and was Italian in its language, sympathies, and customs. In the year 1767 it was invaded by a French army, and after several most sanguinary conflicts, the inhabitants were compelled to yield to superior power, and Corsica was annexed to the empire of the Bourbons. ”