BOOK IX.—WANDERINGS IN CORSICA.
CHAPTER I.
FROM AJACCIO TO THE VALLEY OF ORNANO.
The road from Ajaccio to Sartene is rich in remarkable scenery and peculiar landscape. It runs for a time along the Gulf of Ajaccio, crosses the river Gravone, which falls into the gulf, and winds through the valley of the Prunelli. From all sides the view of the gulf is magnificent, at times unseen, at other times reappearing, as the road pursues its spiral windings among the mountains.
At the mouth of the Prunelli stands the solitary tower of Capitello, with which the history of Napoleon has made us acquainted.
The towns in this part of the country are but few in number: they are called Fontanaccia, Serrola, and Cavro. Cavro is a paese, consisting of several distinct hamlets, in a wild and romantic mountainous country, rich in granite and porphyry, and interspersed with the most luxuriant vineyards. Ten minutes' walk into this mountainous region of Cavro brings us to the scene of the treacherous assassination of Sampiero. The Ornanos chose their place well. There, in a circle, stand high rocks, down the side of which winds a narrow path into the gorge, through which a mountain stream flows, while around grow oaks, olive-trees, and brushwood. On a rock near the place are still visible the ruins of Castle Giglio, where Sampiero spent the night before his death. I looked around in vain for some memorial which might inform the wanderer that in this gloomy spot the most heroic of all Corsicans met his fate. This, too, is a characteristic trait of the Corsican nation; the living memory of the people is the only monument of their wild tragic history. Every rock in the island is a memorial stone; and the Corsicans may well dispense with monumental pillars and tablets, so long as the great events of their history continue to form a living element of their own being. For, when a people begin to decorate their land with statues and with monuments, it is a sure sign that their primeval power is gone. The whole of Italy is at present a mere museum of monuments, statues, and inscriptions; while in Corsica, nature continues to reign, and living tradition has lost none of its power. Indeed, the Corsicans would not even understand the meaning of a statue or a monument; such a thing would appear to them strange and foreign. When a statue—which he declined—was voted to Pasquale Paoli, after his return from England, a Corsican remarked: "As well give an honest man a box on the ear, as offer him a statue."
Near this gloomy spot, however, stood a group of living monuments of the greatness of Sampiero—peasants, with the Phrygian cap of freedom pressed down upon their brows, talking together in the sun. I went up to them, and entered into conversation with them about their old national hero. The people have conferred upon him the most honourable agnomen that could be borne by the son of any nation; for he is never mentioned by any other than Sampiero Corso—Sampiero the Corsican. In a striking manner has the judgment of his countrymen been pronounced in this name—that Sampiero is himself the most complete expression of the character of the Corsican people, and a symbol of the nation's power and greatness. This great man, hewn from the primeval granite of his country, is the perfect representative of the character of the island as of its history—rude valour, unconquerable obstinacy, a glowing love of freedom, patriotism, a penetrating sagacity, poverty without its wants, roughness and violent passion, volcanic emotions, thirst for revenge—leading him even like Othello to murder his wife; and, that no bloody trait (and bloodthirstiness is a remarkable psychological characteristic of the Corsican nationality) in the history of Sampiero Corso may be wanting, we find the completion of the picture in his own violent death. Living several centuries ago, his character could embrace within itself every element of the Corsican nature. The same traits are observable in Pasquale Paoli, but, from the philosophical and humanistic character of the century in which he lived, their manifestations are not so intense nor so peculiarly national.
The eldest of Sampiero's sons continued the war against the Genoese for some time after his father's death, but afterwards emigrated. In the year 1570, Catherine de' Medici appointed him colonel of the Corsican regiment which she had taken into her service. He distinguished himself by his courage in many battles and sieges, under Charles IX. and Henry III. After the murder of Henry, under whom he had been governor of Dauphiné, the League exerted themselves to draw over the influential Corsican to their side; but Alfonso was among the first who acknowledged the claims of Henry IV., and became one of the most powerful supports of his throne. The king created him Marshal of France, and rewarded the fidelity of the hero with his personal friendship. Henry thus writes to Alfonso: "Dear Cousin—Your despatch, delivered to me by M. de Tour, has given me the earliest information with regard to your successful exertions in my town of Romans. By God's grace, few, if any evil consequences have followed from these wicked plots; and, next to him, there is no one who deserves greater praise in this affair than yourself, for you have acted with unparalleled skill and courage. Receive my best thanks. Your present exertions are but the continuation of your usual decided style of action, and they have been attended with the success which always accompanies your endeavours." In the year 1594, Alfonso took Lyons, Vienne, and several towns in Provence and Dauphiné. He was the terror of the anti-royalists; and, honoured and feared for his military genius, he was equally beloved and respected for his uprightness and benevolence. Several French towns, ruined by the plague and the severities of war, were assisted by Alfonso from his own private purse. He died at Paris in 1610, at the age of sixty-two, and was buried in the Church de la Merci at Bordeaux. By his wife, a daughter of Nicolas de Ponteveze, lord of Flassau, he had several children; and one of his sons, Jean Baptiste d'Ornano, likewise rose to the dignity of Marshal of France. His fall, in the period of Richelieu's government, was occasioned by certain court intrigues; the minister threw him into the Bastille, where he died by poison—administered, it is said, by Richelieu's orders—in 1618. In the year 1670, the line of Sampiero's family, which had made its first appearance in France with Alfonso, became extinct.
His second son, Antonio Francesco d'Ornano, met, like his father, a violent end. It was he with whom the unhappy Vannina fled from Marseilles to Genoa, and who was with her when she was murdered by her enraged husband. Antonio Francesco lived, like his brother, at the court of France. Young, of a fiery temperament, and with a strong desire to see the world, he sought and obtained leave to accompany the ambassador of Henry III. to Rome. One day, at cards, a quarrel arose between him and some French gentlemen of the embassy, among whom one M. de la Roggia took the lead. The impetuous Corsican let fall some insulting words; but the Frenchman restrained his anger and concealed his desire for revenge, and the youthful Ornano suspected nothing. A riding-party was soon after formed for a visit to the Colosseum. Here Ornano, after his Italian friends had left him, remained alone with his servant and twelve Frenchmen, half of the number on horseback, and half on foot. M. de la Roggia invited him to dismount and accompany him into the Colosseum. Ornano agreed; but had hardly dismounted from his horse, before the treacherous Frenchmen—those who were mounted as well as those on foot—fell upon him. Though bleeding from several wounds, Ornano defended himself against this unequal force with heroic courage. Setting his back to a pillar of the Colosseum, he made a bold and vigorous stand with his sword, till he was overpowered and fell. The murderers fled, leaving him weltering in his blood. Mortally wounded, he was carried to his own house, where he died on the following day. This event took place in the year 1580. He was never married, and left no descendants.
I visited the tomb of this the youngest son of Sampiero, in the Church of San Chrysogono, in the Trastevere at Rome, where he lies buried, with many other Corsican gentlemen. San Chrysogono is a church belonging to the Corsicans, having been ceded to them several centuries ago, when numerous fugitives from the island settled in Ostia, and upon Tiber-Borgo. Antonio Francesco d'Ornano is said to have been the perfect image of his father; and it is added, that, in addition to his face and form, he possessed also his intrepidity—a virtue for which Sampiero was as celebrated as the Roman Fabricius. History informs us that Pyrrhus plotted to terrify this great general by the sudden appearance of an elephant; and there is a tradition that the Sultan Solyman tried a like experiment with Sampiero. The story goes that one day the Grand Seignior wished to discover for himself whether the accounts he had heard of Sampiero's intrepidity were exaggerated or not. Accordingly, when Sampiero was seated at table with him, one of his attendants, who had received proper instructions, fired off a two-pound cannon under the table, the moment the Corsican hero was about to drink from the goblet of wine he had carried to his lips. All eyes were turned upon him. Not a feature of his countenance altered; and the shot made no greater impression on him than the noise of a cup falling.
Further north from Cavro lies the large canton of Bastelica, separated by a chain of mountains from the canton of Zicavo. This rugged and mountainous country, piled up with immense masses of granite, interspersed with wild valleys shaded by the knotty oak-tree, and hemmed in by the snow-capped peaks of giant mountains, is the fatherland of Sampiero. In Bastelica, or rather in the little village of Dominicaccia, they still show the dark gloomy house in which he was born; his own dwelling was pulled down by the Genoese under Stephen Doria. He is well remembered in this district, and the imagination of the people has consecrated many a natural memorial of his life and deeds. Here it is a foot-mark of the hero in the rock—here the impression of his gun—here a cave, or an oak-tree under which he rested and ate. The inhabitants of this valley are distinguished for their powerful frames and warlike appearance. They are mostly herdsmen—rude natures, with the iron manners of their forefathers, and completely untouched by culture or civilisation. The inhabitants of the cantons of Bastelica and Morosaglia are considered the most powerful men in Corsica—curiously enough, since they are the brothers of Sampiero and Paoli, both of whom were veritable men of the people, without titles and without ancestry.
The mountain-ridge of San Giorgio divides the valley of Prunelli from the broad valley of the Taravo. After passing the crest of the mountain—the Bocca, as it is called—the traveller's eye falls upon two beautiful mountain-valleys thickly studded with hamlets and villages—the valleys of Istria and Ornano. The river Taravo flows through them in a very rocky channel. My memory in vain seeks for some well-known region of Italy, to illustrate to the reader the character of these Corsican valleys. Many parts of the Apennines are somewhat similar. But these Corsican mountains and valleys, with their chestnut-groves, their dark-brown rock-walls, their foaming streams, their black and scattered villages, appeared to me far more sublime, far wilder and more picturesque than any Italian scenery; and, when suddenly the distant shining sea broke upon the view, the scene was not to be compared with the landscape of any other country in the world.
In these mountains dwelt the old noble families of Istria and Ornano, the head of whom local tradition declares to have been Hugo Colonna; the same whom I have mentioned in my history of the island. Many a tower and ruined castle still attest, but in uncertain accents, the glory of their rule. The chief cantons of this district are those of Santa Maria and Petreto.
In Santa Maria d'Ornano was the seat of the Ornanos. Originally the pieve went by the name of Ornano, but it is now called Santa Maria. The country around is beautiful, with green smiling hills, broad rich pastures, and thick olive-groves. This was the native land of the fair Vannina; and here still stands the tall, brown, castellated house where she lived, picturesquely situated on a height commanding the valley. Not far from this house are still to be seen the ruins of a castle, built by Sampiero, with a chapel near it, in which he heard mass. It is said, however, that he never went to the chapel, but contented himself with sitting at a window of the castle when mass was being read. It was built in the year 1554.
CHAPTER II.
FROM ORNANO TO SARTENE.
The Taravo forms the boundary between the province of Ajaccio and that of Sartene, the most southern of the arrondissements of Corsica. The traveller, on entering it, comes at first to the beautiful canton of Petreto and Bicchisano, which extends along the Taravo to the Gulf of Valinco. The view of this district, and of the bay far below, is regarded by the Corsicans themselves as one of the most magnificent in their romantic island. In general, the country on the other side of these mountains is of a grander and more sublime character, and bears upon it the colossal stamp of primeval nature. In many parts of this canton the traveller meets with ruins of the castles of the lordly house of Istria, but in a sad state of decay, and seldom distinguishable at the first view from the black granite of the surrounding rocks.
On a mountain above Sollacaro stand the ruins of a castle belonging to Vincentello d'Istria—of whom mention is made in the history—deep buried among trees, and thickly shrouded with creeping plants. With this castle is connected one of those wild traditions, which peculiarly distinguish Corsica, as they likewise characterize the terrible times of the Middle Ages. On this spot stood, in earlier times, another castle, in which dwelt a lady, very beautiful, but of a fierce and savage disposition. This lady, Savilia by name, enticed a powerful lord of the family of Istria—Giudice d'Istria—into her castle, after having promised him her hand. Istria entered the castle, and was immediately cast into a dungeon by the lady Savilia. Every morning, she went down to the prison where he was lying, and while she undressed herself before the eyes of Istria, at the grated window of the dungeon, she mocked and scoffed at him with cruel gibes. "Look upon me!" she said; "is this fair body made, thinkest thou, to be enjoyed by a hideous wretch like thee?" And thus she continued, morning after morning, for a long time, till at length Istria succeeded in making his escape. Vowing revenge, he marched with his vassals to Lady Savilia's castle, broke into it, and laid it level with the ground; the fair Savilia he shut up in a hut, which stood at the crossing of several roads, and compelled her to expose herself to every passer-by. The miserable lady expired on the third day of her captivity. Vincentello d'Istria afterwards built, on the site of the former, the castle whose ruins are at present to be seen there. The family of Colonna still survives in Corsica; in fact, it is perhaps older and more numerous than any other noble family in the world, and its branches have spread over the whole of Europe.
The next pieve—Olmeto—was entirely a fief of the powerful family of the Istrias. The chief town, also called Olmeto, lies at the foot of high mountains, while beyond stretches a magnificent valley, wooded with olive-trees, and washed by the waters of the gulf of Valinco. On Buttareto, one of the most rugged of these mountains, are still shown the ruins of a castle, formerly the residence of Arrigo della Rocca. The view from Olmeto, away over the valley, as far as the gulf, is remarkably fine. There is a peculiar charm in the soft lines of the landscape, and the silence of the dark-brown coast. The view extends to the north as far as Cape Porto Pollo, and on the south to Cape Campo Moro. The name of Moorish camp, which is given to the cape and a small piece of land adjoining, on which now stands a watch-tower, carries the mind back to the time of the Saracens, who so often landed here in centuries long gone by. The Corsican arms—a Moor's head, with a band across the brow—dates from the expedition of the Saracen king, Lanza Ancisa, so celebrated in legendary romance. The whole coast is here of a Moorish-brown colour, and over it broods an inconceivable stillness—the deep peace of a summer's day. As I approached the little port of Propriano on the gulf, the spirit of dead times—a spirit so welcome in a desert island-country, again breathed upon me. There stood before me, on the shore, a crowd of Corsicans, all of them strong, healthy, dark-haired fellows; the double-barrelled gun slung upon their shoulders, standing as if in readiness to resist the attack of the Saracen. The sight of these dark and warlike forms, and the melancholy wildness of the shore, transported me completely into the times of the Middle Ages. I could not help remembering a Spanish ballad, which celebrates the prowess of Dragut the Corsair—well known in the history of the Corsican nation. It may well be sung on the shores of this wild gulf, among this stern band of islanders:—
DRAGUT AT TARIFA.
In the offing of Tarifa,
Nearly half a league from shore,
Dragut, chief of all corsairs,
Pirate both by sea and land,
Of the Christian dogs descried—
Come from Malta—vessels five.
Cursing all the hated race,
Thus he shouted loud and long—
Al arma! al arma! al arma!
Cierra! cierra! cierra!
Que el enemigo viene a darnos guerra.
Dragut, chief of all corsairs,
Fired with haste a signal-gun—
A signal to the pirate crew,
Who were for wood and water gone.
Then the Christians gave reply
From the galleys and the shore,
And in the haven every bell
Quick took up the 'larum-cry—
Al arma! al arma! al arma!
Cierra! cierra! cierra!
Que el enemigo viene a darnos guerra.
And the Christian captive, who
Despairing wailed his hapless lot,
Felt a gleam of hope light up
The darkness of his prison-gloom.
For a moment Dragut took
Counsel with his captains all:
"Shall we wait, or shall we hoist
Our sails, and put to sea?"
Al arma! al arma! al arma!
Cierra! cierra! cierra!
Que el enemigo viene a darnos guerra.
Then said they all with one accord—
"Wait! wait! let them come on!
What is the ocean but the field
Of pirates' victory?"
Then Dragut shouted loud and long—
"Up, knaves! up to the fight!
Every gunner to his gun!
Load and fire, and load again—hurra!"
Al arma! al arma! al arma!
Cierra! cierra! cierra!
Que el enemigo viene a darnos guerra.
The refrain of this spirited song—"To arms! to arms! to arms! Danger! danger! danger! for the enemy is coming to attack us"—I have preserved in the original Spanish; it would seem somewhat tame in a translated form.
On the 12th of June 1564, Sampiero landed on the shores of this gulf—another note of more peculiar meaning among these warlike echoes of past times.
The country rises gradually from the shore into a rugged mountainous region, covered with huge boulders. Rocks, low brush-wood, the sand upon the shore, and a dead marsh, combine to render this part of the island peculiarly wild and bleak. The evergreen oak, however, and the cork-tree, grow here in great numbers; and the rugged soil brings forth corn and wine. At last Sartene met my view, stretching before me—a wide-extended paese—in melancholy isolation, among melancholy rocks and mountains.
CHAPTER III.
THE TOWN OF SARTENE.
The town of Sartene contains only 3890 inhabitants. It is the capital of the arrondissement, which is divided into eight pieves or cantons, and has a population amounting to 29,300. Sartene appeared to me a rude country place, with less of the appearance of a town than even Calvi or the little town of Isola Rossa; it does not, indeed, seem to differ in any respect from the other large paeses of the island. The style of building is that in common use in the villages, with the addition of a little ornament. All the houses, and even the tower of the largest church in the town, are built of brown granite, with loam instead of mortar. The church alone has a coating of yellow wash; all the other buildings are of the usual dark-brown hue. Many of the houses are merely wretched huts; and some of the streets, on the slope of the mountain, are so narrow, that two men can with difficulty pass each other. Steep stairs of stone conduct us to the vaulted gate which stands in the middle of the outer wall. I rambled through the streets; they seemed to be inhabited by veritable demons; and I felt as if at some corner I should suddenly come upon old Dis, or were wandering through Dante's city of Hell. In the quarter of Santa Anna, however, there are some elegant houses, belonging to the richer classes; and some have a very pleasant appearance, in spite of the black stone of which they are built. All are quaint, original, and picturesque in the highest degree—effects which they owe to the blunt-cornered, projecting Italian roofs, and the odd Italian chimneys; some in the shape of pillars, with the strangest-looking capitals, others in the form of towers or obelisks. A house with an Italian roof looks remarkably well; and, if its walls are only built of regularly hewn stone, the appearance of it is undoubtedly pleasing. I found my old cabins of Monte Rotondo again in the market-place. They were used for provision-stores. The pompous names of some of the inns—Hôtel de l'Europe, Hôtel de Paris, Hôtel de la France—were ridiculous enough beside these primitive specimens of Corsican architecture.
The name Sartene seems to have some connexion with Sardinia or Saracen. No one could give me any information as to the origin of the word. In ancient times, the town was called Sartino; and a local tradition informs us that it was once famous for its mineral springs. At that time strangers flocked to the place for the benefit of these waters. The poor inhabitants of the barren spot died in consequence of hunger—for the strangers seized upon all the produce of the soil. The inhabitants, resolved no longer to endure such a state of things, choked up the springs, abandoned their houses, and built a town higher up among the mountains. If this tradition is a true one, it forms no testimony in favour of anything but Corsican indolence.
Sartene suffered terribly from the Saracens. The Moors, after repeated attacks, surprised the town in the year 1583, and in one day carried off four hundred persons into captivity—the third part of the population at that time. From that date, Sartene has been defended by a strong wall.
To-day, standing in this quiet town, whose inhabitants are talking peacefully together under the large elm-tree, in the quaint, idyllic market-place, one cannot believe that revenge and the fiercer passions could find a lurking-place within its walls. And yet this town, after the Revolution of July, was for many years the scene of a horrible civil war. The citizens have been divided, since the year 1815, into two parties—the adherents of the family of Rocca Serra, and those of the family of Ortoli. The former party is composed of the richer inhabitants, who live in the quarter of Santa Anna; the latter, of the poorer classes occupying the Borgo. Both factions had intrenched themselves, barred their houses, shut their windows, and proceeded to make sorties upon each other, to shoot and to stab one another with the most furious zeal. The Rocca Serrans were the Whites or Bourbonists, the Ortoli the Reds or Liberals; the former had forbidden the opposite party admission into their quarter of the town; and the Ortoli, in contempt of this declaration, had formed a procession, and marched with flags flying into Santa Anna. The Rocca Serrans immediately ran to their arms, and shot at the procession from their windows, killed three men and wounded several others. This was the signal for a bloody combat. The day after, several hundred mountaineers came with their guns to the assistance of the Ortoli, and besieged Santa Anna. The Government despatched a body of soldiers, which had the effect of apparently restoring order. Both parties, however, continued hostilities, and many lives were lost on both sides. The hostile feeling continues to this day, although, after thirty-three years of deadly feud, the Rocca Serrans and the Ortoli, on the occasion of the election of Louis Napoleon as President, held a meeting of reconciliation, where their children were allowed to dance together.
Corsica, with these inextinguishable family feuds, presents the same picture as the Italian cities of Florence, Bologna, Verona, Padua, and Milan, several centuries ago. The Italian Middle Ages still survive in this island; and here still rage the same tumults described so picturesquely by Dino Compagni in his chronicles of Florence—that war of fellow-citizens, whom, as Dante complains, the same ditch surrounds and the same wall defends. But in Corsica, these feuds are much more remarkable and more terrible; raging, as they do, in districts of so small an extent, in villages with a population of not above one thousand souls, the inhabitants of which are indissolubly connected by the ties of blood and hospitality.
To-day the people of the town are assembled in the marketplace, where an odd sort of scaffolding is being erected, for the exhibition of fireworks, against the 15th of August, the anniversary of Napoleon's christening. It is not improbable that the festival may rekindle the flame, and these black houses may in a few days be transformed into little fortresses, from which shots of death will be scattered around. Here it was political feeling that stirred up the angry passions of the townspeople; in other districts strife has been kindled by a personal offence, or some accidental circumstance of the most trivial nature. The shooting of a goat has occasioned the death of sixteen men, and roused a whole canton to arms. A young man throws a piece of bread to his dog, another man's dog snatches it; and a feud arises between two parishes, with death and murder upon both sides. Causes of quarrel are never wanting at the communal elections, festivals, or dances; these are often extremely ridiculous. At Mariana, in the year 1832, a dead ass became the occasion of a bloody feud between two villages. A procession from one of the villages was proceeding, during Easter-week, to a chapel, on the road to which a dead ass was lying. Upon this, the sacristan began to curse the people who had thrown the ass upon the road, and had thus profaned the holy procession. Immediately there arose a quarrel between the people of Lucciana and those of Borgo—the parish to which the ass belonged; guns were unslung, and shots exchanged; the holy procession was suddenly transformed into a confused mass of combatants. The one parish threw the blame of the dead ass upon the other; the body was dragged from Borgo to Lucciana, and from Lucciana to Borgo; and these pilgrimages were on every occasion accompanied with fighting, shooting, and the furious shouts of battle.
It resembled the combat of the Greeks and Trojans for the dead body of Patroclus. The people of Borgo dragged the dead ass to the chapel of Lucciana, and flung it down at the door of the church; the Luccianese carried it off to Borgo, and after storming the village, fixed it on the church-tower. At last the Podestà seized the corpus delicti, already in a state of rapid decomposition, and none the better for its frequent travels, and the dead ass found a quiet resting-place in the grave. The poet Viale has written a comic Epopee on this occurrence, in the style of the Stolen Bucket of Bologna.
A detachment of ten gendarmes is at present stationed in Sartene. The same number is usually posted in the chief town of every canton, and in those villages which are particularly troublesome. The officer of the company was an Alsatian, who had lived twenty-two years in the island, seemingly quite happily, and without any expectation of meeting a countryman in Sartene. Whenever I meet an Alsatian or a Lothringian—the latter always speak very inaccurate German—I feel deep sorrow for these lost German brethren of mine. It always brings a pang to my heart, to think of a branch of the noble old German oak in the hands of the French. This officer had severe complaints to make regarding the dangerous service in which he was employed, and the petty warfare he had to carry on with the banditti. He pointed to a mountain in the distance—the lofty Incudine. "Look," said he, "yonder sits a captain of banditti, whom we have to hunt like a wild sheep. There are fifteen hundred francs on his head, but they are not so easy to win. A few days ago we apprehended twenty-nine men who had been carrying provisions to the fellow. I have them here in the barracks."
"What will be their punishment?"
"A year's imprisonment, if they are convicted. They are herdsmen or mountain-people, friends and relations of the bandit."
Poor Corsica! what, under circumstances like these, is to become of thy industry and thy agriculture!
The view of the dark mountain of Incudine where the poor bandit is sitting, and the recollection of the feuds of Sartene, recall to my mind some stories from the inexhaustible stores of the Corsican romance of revenge. Let us sit down together upon a rock, in sight of these glorious mountains, and the waters of the Gulf of Valinco, and listen to two stories about Corsican guns and their owners.
CHAPTER IV.
TWO STORIES OF THE VENDETTA.
ORSO PAOLO.
The people of the village of Monte d'Olmo were one day celebrating a festival of the Church. The priests had taken their places before the altar, and numbers of devout worshippers had already assembled within the sacred edifice, while not a few still lingered over their gossip outside. Among these latter were the Vincenti and Grimaldi—two families between which a hereditary feud had existed from time immemorial. To-day they ventured to look each other in the face, as the sacred festivity compelled at least a temporary suspension of all animosities.
Somebody started the question, whether or not the priests should be made to wear the capote or cowled cloak of their order during the procession.
"No," said Orso Paolo, of the Vincenti family, "they should be made to do nothing of the kind, for it was never the custom in our forefathers' times."
"Yes," cried Ruggero, of the Grimaldi family, "they ought to wear their capotes, for that is the regulation of our Holy Church."
And the strife for and against capotes waxed hot and noisy, and filled the little square before the church with a din that could not have been exceeded, had a declaration for or against Genoa been the question to be decided. One took the word out of another's mouth; one after another sprang upon the stone bench to defend his opinion in a speech, and the by-standers hissed or applauded, shouted in derision or approbation, according as a Grimaldi or a Vincenti had advocated or denounced the capotes.
Suddenly some one let fall an insulting expression. That moment rose cries of rage and defiance, and every one drew his pistols from his belt. The Grimaldi rushed upon Orso Paolo, who fired among his assailants. Antonio, Ruggero's eldest son, fell mortally wounded.
The music of the holy mass ceased in the church. The people poured out in a body—men, women, and children, the priests in their robes, crucifix in hand.
The entire village of Olmo was one confused scene of flight and pursuit, re-echoing with yells of fury, and the reports of fire-arms. The cries of the Grimaldi were vows of death to Orso Paolo.
Orso had made for the woods with the speed of a hunted deer. But his foes saw his aim; revenge gave them wings, and they succeeded in interposing themselves between him and the hoped-for shelter.
He was surrounded. From every side he saw furious pursuers approaching; already their balls whizzed about his head. It was vain to think of reaching the wood; there was little time to ponder a new plan; he was cut off from the open country; only a house stood near on the mountain-side—the house of his deadly foe Ruggero.
Orso Paolo saw it, and in a moment he had crossed its threshold and secured the door. He had his weapons with him, his carchera was full of cartridges, there was a store of victuals in the house, and he might hold out for days. It was empty too; all its usual inmates had hurried into the village, and Ruggero's wife was occupied with the wounded Antonio. Her second son, still a child, had alone remained in the house, and lay asleep.
Scarce had Orso Paolo intrenched himself here, when Ruggero appeared with all the Grimaldi at his back; but the barrel of Orso's gun appeared at the window, and he was heard to promise its contents to the first that approached the door. No one ran the risk.
In most ungentle mood, they stood before the house uncertain what to do; Ruggero stamped with rage that his deadliest enemy should have found refuge in his own house; the tiger is not more furious when it sees and cannot reach its prey.
The crowd increased every minute, and filled the air with their vociferations; presently the wail of women was heard to mingle with their cries; it was a party carrying the wounded Antonio into the house of a relation. The sight redoubled Ruggero's fury; he rushed into a house, and snatched a firebrand from the hearth, to fling upon his own roof, and consume it and Orso Paolo together. As he swung the brand round his head, and cried to the others to follow his example, his wife threw herself distractedly in his way. "Madman," she cried, "our child is in the house! Would you burn your child? Antonio is at death's door—Francesco lies sleeping within there—will you murder your last child?"
"Let them burn to death together," cried Ruggero; "let the world be burnt to ashes, if only Orso Paolo perish in the flames!"
The shrieking woman threw herself at her husband's feet, clasped her arms round his knees, and refused to let him move from the spot. But Ruggero thrust her from him, and hurled the firebrand into his house.
The fire caught. Soon the flame rose, and the dancing sparks flew about upon the wind. The mother had sunk lifeless to the earth, and they carried her to the house where her son Antonio lay.
But Ruggero stood before his burning house, which was now completely surrounded by the Grimaldi, that Orso Paolo, if he should attempt to escape, might find their bullets in his way; Ruggero stood before his house and gazed into the flames, laughing horribly as they rose and roared, shouting mad shouts of gratified revenge and wild pain, as the beams cracked and fell in—for it seemed to him that every burning beam fell upon his own heart.
Often he thought he descried a form among the flames, but perhaps it was only a wreath of smoke, or a whirling column of fire—then, again, came sounds as of a weeping child. Suddenly the roof fell in with a crash, and smoke and tongues of flame shot up from the horrid ruin towards heaven.
Ruggero, who had been standing dumb and motionless, staring with glassy eye, body bent forward, and arm outstretched toward the house, fell with a groan to the earth. He was borne into the neighbouring house, and laid beside his wounded son. When his consciousness returned, he was unable at first to understand what had happened, but immediately the truth dawned upon him—the glare of his burning home flashed conviction and remorse into his soul, and shuddering, he recognised the dreadful enormity of his deed.
For the space of a minute he stood in deep thought, as if the lightning of heaven had scathed him to the marrow; then with a sudden start, he tore the dagger from his belt, and would have buried it in his breast. But his wife and friends arrested his arm, and deprived him of his weapons.
What had become of Orso Paolo? What of Francesco?
When Orso Paolo found the beams of the roof had taken fire, he began to seek for some place of safety, some hole or vault where he would be protected from the flames. As he wandered from chamber to chamber, he heard the weeping and terrified screaming of a child. He sprang into the room whence it issued. A child sat here upon its bed, and, bitterly weeping, stretched its arms towards him, and called for its mother. It seemed to Orso at that moment, as if the Evil One called to him from out the flames to murder the innocent child, and so punish his foe's vengeful barbarity. "Hast thou not a right of vengeance over the very children of thine enemy? Thy knife, Orso! Extinguish the last hope of the house of Grimaldi!"
A horrid thirst for vengeance glared in Orso's eye as he bent over the child. The glow from the flames bathed himself, the child, the room, in a purple tinge as of blood. He bent over the weeping Francesco, and—suddenly he snatched up the child, clasped it to his breast, and kissed it with a wild fervour. Then, still bearing it in his arms, he rushed out of the chamber, and groped his way through the burning house, seeking some spot of safety.
The house had scarcely fallen in, when the horns of the Vincenti were heard outside the village. The men of Castel d'Acqua, all of them friends or relations of Orso Paolo, had heard of his danger, and were assembled for his rescue. The Grimaldi fled from the scene of the conflagration to the house in which Ruggero, his wife, and Antonio were.
A quarter of an hour of fearful suspense passed away.
Suddenly the market-place of Olmo resounded with a loud and exulting shout, and from a hundred tongues was heard the cry: Evviva, Orso Paolo! Antonio's mother flew to the window; then with a cry of joy she rushed to the door, and after her Ruggero and the women.
Through the midst of the jubilant crowd came Orso Paolo, his face beaming with joy, and the child Franceso clasped tenderly in his arms. His clothes were singed, he was black with smoke, and covered with ashes. He had rescued himself and the child in a vault beneath a flight of stairs.
Ruggero's wife threw herself on Orso Paolo's breast, and flung her arms round him and her little son, with a joy too deep for utterance.
But Ruggero fell upon his knees before his foe, and while he embraced his feet with sobs, begged his forgiveness, and God's.
"Rise, my friend Grimaldi," said Orso Paolo; "may God so to-day forgive us both, as we forgive each other; and here, before the people of Olmo, swear eternal friendship."
The foes sank into each other's arms, and the people shouted exultingly: Evviva, Orso Paolo!
Antonio soon recovered from his wound; and gay were the festivities of that evening in the village of Monte d'Olmo, when the Grimaldi and the Vincenti celebrated their solemn feast of reconciliation. The olive-branch of peace decked the houses, and nothing was to be heard but evvivas and musket-shots, and the music of tinkling wine-glasses, violins, and mandolines.
DEZIO DEZII.
When the Genoese were still lords of the island of Corsica, a furious contest arose between the two villages of Serra and Serrale, in the pieve of Moriani. Two houses were at bitter and bloody feud—the Dezii in Serra, and the Venturini in Serrale.
At length they had grown weary of the long war of vengeance, and both families had with solemn oath sworn peace before the Parolanti. Now these Parolanti are worthy men, appointed as arbitrators by the two parties in common; they act as witnesses of the oath of reconciliation; in their hands is lodged the written deed by which amity is ratified, and it is their duty to watch that for the future nothing be done to break the peace. On that godless man who nevertheless does break the peace, falls the scorn and contempt of all the good, and the wrath and vengeance of the Parolanti overtake his house, his field, and his vineyard.
The Dezii and the Venturini, then, had in this manner sworn peace, and a happy tranquillity reigned in the Pieve di Moriani. But as the evil spirit of contention cannot rest, but must ever be blowing upon the ashes, to see if some spark of the old grudge may not yet be awakened, it fell out one day in the market-place of Serrale, that such a spark was kindled in the fierce heart of the old Venturini. Nicolao was a grayhaired man, but in bodily vigour he was young as his sons. He had a dark look, a venomous tongue, and the cramp in his dagger-hand. He met young Dezio Dezii on the market-place—Dezio, the pride and flower of the house of his enemies. He was a comely youth, and of pleasant manners; but his temper was quick and fiery.
This old man with the dark look, addressed sneering and bitter words to Dezio, nor was it known why he should have done so; for the youth had given him no provocation. When the words fell on Dezio's ear, his heart filled with shame and indignation; but he thought on the Parolanti, on his oath of peace, and the gray hairs of Nicolao; and he quieted his swelling heart, and passed silently out of the village of Serrale.
It so happened, however, that on the same evening the old man and the youth met in the open field. When Dezio saw Nicolao approaching, observing that he was unarmed, he left his gun leaning on a tree, that the Evil Spirit might not provoke him to injure a man who carried no weapon; then, going up to old Nicolao, he demanded haughtily the ground of his insult.
The old man replied contemptuously; and after a few fiery words had passed, he seized the youth by the breast, and gave him a blow in the face. Dezio staggered back; the next moment he sprang to his musket, and in another second Nicolao fell, shot to the heart.
The unhappy Dezio fled as if pursued by the avenging angel, and made his way from crag to crag far into the heights of Monte Cinto, where he threw himself, weeping, into a cave.
The Parolanti had hastened to the scene of this deed of blood. They cried, "Wo over Dezio and all his race!" and assembled in a body before his dwelling. His young wife was in the house. They told her that she must leave her home, for it had fallen under the ban of justice; and as soon as the sobbing woman had crossed the threshold, they set the house on fire, and burned it to the ground. They then entered Dezio's chestnut-grove and olive-orchard, and, with the hatchet, barked every tree, in token that the owner had broken his oath and shed blood, and that the curse of angry Heaven had fallen upon him and all that was his. And this they did according to ancient and sacred custom.
The kinsmen of Dezio remained quiet, for they acknowledged that in all this was nought but justice. But Luigione, son of the murdered Nicolao, allowed his beard to grow, signifying thereby that he had resolved to avenge his father's blood. He took his gun, and ranged the hills to find Dezio; and, as he could not come upon his traces, though he lay night and day among the rocks, he took service with the Genoese, who formed the watch in the Tower of Padulella, thinking, that with their help, he might perhaps surprise his foe.
Dezio, meanwhile, lived with the fox, the deer, and the wild sheep, and roamed about in desert fastnesses, every night seeking a new shelter, ever wandering, and ever bearing with him in his heart sadness and alarm. One day he escaped in a ship with sailors, who were his friends, to Genoa. He enlisted in the service of the Genoese, and in this banishment long years went by.
At length there awoke in him a longing to see his native country and his wife. He obtained his discharge, and took with him from Genoa a letter of protection, which ordained that he was to live free and unharmed in Corsica, and outlawed any one that should seek to injure him.
Perhaps, too, Dezio hoped that Luigione's thirst for vengeance had in the course of time gone to sleep. He returned accordingly to his village, found his wife again, and remained quietly within her house. Nobody knew that he had come back; for he never showed himself, going only into the woods, and to lonesome places, where he was certain that no one would meet him. But the shadow of old Nicolao was always by his side.
Weeks and months passed thus, and nobody knew or spoke of Dezio. One day, Luigione, who was famous in these mountains as a hunter, said to his wife, "I dreamt last night that I shot a fox in the hills. I shall go out to-day; perhaps I may have good luck." So he threw his gun upon his shoulder, and went into the hills.
He started a fox. It took cover in a thicket, and Luigione hastened after. The spot was wild and lonely. As soon as he got among the bushes, he found a narrow shepherd's track, which wound about and about, and led him always deeper and deeper into the savage country. Suddenly, Luigione stopped. Below a clump of wild olives, he saw a man lying in deep sleep. Beside him lay his double-barrelled gun and his zucca. A long and bushy beard partly concealed his face. Luigione remained motionless as a statue; but with a feverish eagerness his eyes devoured the sleeping man. The blood shot seething hot to his cheeks, and then again they became deadly pale; his heart was beating so loud that it might almost have given the alarm to the sleeper.
He made a single step forwards—another; he gazed into the stranger's face. Yes; it was Dezio—his father's murderer! A wild smile lit up Luigione's face. He drew the dagger from his belt.
"God has given thee into my hands," he murmured, "that I may kill thee this day. My father's blood be upon thee!" and he raised the two-edged blade. But a swift thought sped like an angel between him and his sleeping foe, and suspended the weapon in the air. The words of the angel were, "Luigione, forbear to murder sleep!"
Luigione sprang suddenly backwards. Then, with a fearful shout, he cried—
"Dezio! Dezio! rise, and stand to thy weapon!"
The sleeper leapt to his feet, and caught up his gun.
"I could have murdered thee sleeping," said Luigione to him; "but it would have been the deed of a villain. Now defend thyself, for my father's blood cries for revenge!"
Dezio, shocked to death, gazed for one moment on the terrible man, then he hurled his gun far into the bushes, tore pistol and dagger from his belt, and flung them both away, and, baring his breast, cried—
"Luigione, shoot, and avenge thy father! Then I shall have rest in my grave! Kill me!"
Luigione looked at his enemy in amazement, and for a while both were silent. Luigione then laid down his gun, went up to Dezio, and offered him his hand. "God," he said, "gave thee into my hand; but I forgive thee. Peace be with the blood of my father! Now, come and be my guest."
The two men went down into the village side by side; and they remained friends. And as Luigione had no children of his own, he stood godfather to the child of Dezio, as a solemn token that they were reconciled before God; and this he did according to ancient custom.
Dezio grew weary of the world, and became a monk. So pure and God-fearing was his walk, that he was beloved by all till the day of his death; and the blessing of his pious and peace-making spirit diffused itself far and wide among the hills.
On his burial-day, the villages of all the region accompanied him to his grave; and still in the pieve of Moriani they speak of Dezio the comely youth, Dezio the murderer, Dezio the bandit, Dezio the monk, Dezio the priest, Dezio the saint.
CHAPTER V.
THE ENVIRONS OF SARTENE.
Sartene is encircled by a range of bleak mountains, to the north of which stand the Incudine and Coscione. The Coscione is celebrated for its rich pasture-grounds, which are watered by the beautiful streams of the Bianca and the Viola. To these grounds the herdsmen of Quenza bring their flocks in summer, spending the winter on the coast of Porto Vecchio. One of the mountains in the neighbourhood of Sartene is an immense rock of a very remarkable shape; its appearance from a distance is that of a giant lifting his monstrous and misshapen head into the clouds. The mountain goes by the name of the Man of Cogna. In this part of the country are also to be found the remains of Menhirs and Dolmens—those ancient mementos of the Sabian ritual, which are not unfrequently met with in the islands of the Mediterranean, and in countries inhabited by Celtic nations. They consist of stones—not very unlike pillars—placed in a circle, and are here called Stazzone. Corsica has preserved but few remains of these heathen temples; but they are peculiarly abundant in Sardinia. I regretted exceedingly that I had no time, when in Sartene, to pay a visit to these curious remains.
On the surrounding mountains stand ruins of many of the old castles of the brave Renuccio, and the famous Giudice della Rocca. The estates of these old seigniors lay in the neighbourhood of Sartene. The canton of Santa Lucia de Tallano still preserves a memorial of Renuccio in the ruins of the Franciscan convent which was founded by this brave hero, with whom fell the power of the old Corsican barons. In the church is shown the tomb of his daughter Serena, with a marble statue of her in a recumbent posture, a chaplet in her hand, and attached to it a gold purse, as a symbol of her great benevolence.
Among the mountains of Santa Lucia is found that remarkable species of granite—peculiar to Corsica—which goes by the name of Orbicularis. The ground-colour is a grayish blue, but interspersed with black points with a white border, which appear in great numbers on the surface of the stone when broken. I saw some beautiful specimens of this stone. It has, when polished, a remarkably rich appearance, and is of peculiar value in architectural ornamentation. Nature seems to have created this stone in one of her sportive and most genial moods; it is a jewel in the rich mineralogical cabinet of the island. The orbicular granite of Santa Lucia de Tallano has been also deemed worthy of a place in the chapel of the Medicis at Florence, in the decoration of which the rarest and most beautiful stones have been employed.
North-east from Santa Lucia, in the valley of the Fiumiccioli, lies the celebrated canton of Levie, which extends to the small gulf of Ventilegne. The district is mountainous, and tolerably well wooded. It was the abode of several old noble families, particularly that of the Peretti, from whom was descended Napoleon, the friend of Sampiero, and the first of this name mentioned in Corsican history. He was not, however, a relation of Bonaparte. He was killed in a battle with the Genoese.
In Levie stands the town of San Gavino de Corbini, a place well known in Corsican history as the head-quarters of the strange sect of the Giovannalists—those old communists of Corsica, whose theories made such remarkable progress on the island, and who may be considered as the forerunners of Saint-Simonism and Mormonism. Only in a country where the inhabitants still lay in a state of the rudest and most uncultivated nature, and where a belief in the natural equality of man was the dominant trait in the national character—only in a time, moreover, of social disorder, misery, and blood—could the sect of the Giovannalists have found their origin. It is very much to be regretted that the chronicles of the country have not preserved more particular accounts of this remarkable sect. Its appearance seems to be a remarkable trait in the physiognomy of the national history; and transitory as was the phenomenon, I look upon it as forming a strongly-marked line in the portrait of this extraordinary people.
Before taking leave of Sartene, my heartiest eulogies are due to the hospitality of its inhabitants. It was my good fortune to meet with the greatest kindness from these amiable people; their noble and honest confidence cheered my heart, and I spent many a pleasant hour in their society. I could with difficulty tear myself from their hospitality; I accompanied them on their hunting expeditions among the mountains, and, above all, enjoyed myself many a summer day in their beautiful orchards. On leaving Sartene, early in the morning, I was accompanied by all those excellent gentlemen with whose friendship I had been honoured; and when bidding the company adieu, one of them—a cousin of the unfortunate Vittoria Malaspina—placed a note in my hands.
Upon opening it, I found its contents to be as follows:—
"To Signor Ferdinando.
"If you should ever happen to be in danger or in difficulty during your stay in our island, do not forget that you have a friend in Sartene.
Alessandro Casanova."
I preserve this note as a talisman, and at the same time as a testimony to the noble hospitality of Corsica. It was not sufficient for my Sartenese friend to assure me by hand and word that, as his guest, I was under his protection for the rest of my life, but he must needs add to his promise the additional guarantee of a written document.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TOWN OF BONIFAZIO.
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!
We passed through the vale of Ortoli—everywhere waste hill-country, neither grain nor fruit-tree visible. The olive is no longer met with; cork-tree clumps and arbutus alone occupy the soil. We approached the south coast—still more desolate, if possible, than that which we had left behind us. Not far from the mouth of the Ortoli lies a solitary post-house, and opposite it a ridge of rock, on which stands the Tower of Roccapina. Close beside it, on the sharp edge of the cliff, there is a rugged and irregular rocky mass. It bears a striking resemblance to a colossal crowned lion, and is called among the people, Il leone coronato. This singular rock—so conspicuous an object along this line of coast, the first bit of Corsican ground which fell into the hands of Genoa when she wrested the island from the Pisans—stands there as if it were the monument or the arms of the Republic.
From the height here I got my first view of the open sea not far from me, and the coast and hills of Sardinia—a glorious spectacle. The sight of a foreign land suddenly unfolded to the view, here only showing its outline, and there revealing objects with forms characteristic of the country, rouses feelings at once strange and pleasing—anticipation, longing, and doubt. It resembles nothing so much as the fabulous fancy-pictures of childhood. Wholly an island! I stood for long on one of those bare masses of rock, in a violent wind, and in the full glow of the mid-day sun; with a deep feeling of desire, I gazed across the strait on the twin-sister of Corsica. It was entirely wrapt in an ethereal veil of blue; and the sea, stirred by the maestrale, dashed in foaming breakers round its shore.
We rested for a couple of hours, and then resumed our journey farther along the coast. It is much broken up by arms of the sea, and wears a gloomy aspect. Little streams creep sluggishly through morasses into the sea; gray turrets surmount the cliffs which occur at intervals along the coast, and hold solitary watch there. The air is unwholesome. I perceived a couple of little villages on the slope of the hill. I was informed that they were uninhabited; the people, it seems, do not leave the mountains till the first of September.
The sea at this place forms two little gulfs—Figari and Ventilegne. They resemble Fiords, and their coast-lines are often of the most irregular form, rising like rows of ash-gray obelisks.
As we traverse the extreme point of Corsica towards the south-west, the tongue of S. Trinita, terminating in the Capo di Feno, the chalky coast of Bonifazio becomes visible. At the same time, the town itself comes into view, the most southerly and most singular town in the island, snow-white as the coast on which it stands, and perched high upon its rock—an unexpected and surprising spectacle in the midst of the wide and melancholy waste.
The shore all round is stony and shrubby; but for half a league before reaching the town, the traveller passes through olive-groves and orchards, and is astonished to see the blessings which man, when compelled to exert all his industrial power, has been able to win from the limy soil. The little land of Bonifazio gives a full supply of olives which do not yield in quality to those of Balagna. Between chalk-cliffs we drive down to the Marina of Bonifazio, lying on the shore of the gulf. The town itself can now be reached only on foot or on horseback, for we must clamber up the steep rock on a broad path of steps. Cross two drawbridges, and pass through two old gates, and we are in Bonifazio. The fortress and the tower, between which indeed there is no distinction, lie on the flat summit of the rock.
A beautiful greeting does Bonifazio give to the wayfarer who enters through the old gloomy gate; for on the front of one of the towers stands boldly out the grand word Libertas. I used to read it often on the towers and houses of Italian towns—a melancholy satire; on many a banner has this word been blazoned. But here it stands proudly and confidently out on those antique turrets, which can tell of so many glorious deeds of arms. I entered the city with the joyful sensation that I was going among valiant and free men. To the present hour the Bonifazians have the character of being the most republican as well as the most industrious and religious of the inhabitants of Corsica.
The site of Bonifazio is quite peculiar. Imagine a colossal white pyramid of rock, formed of horizontal layers planted in the sea, with its base pointing upwards, and supporting high in the air, fortress, towers, and town, and you will have some idea of this Corsican Gibraltar. The façade is deeply excavated; the whole mass seems to cling to the mainland. On two sides the sea foams round it, a narrow inlet shut in by precipitous, inaccessible hills washes it on a third, forming at once, gulf, haven, and fosse. The power of the water has torn up the coast all round, and has washed the rocks into the most grotesque forms. From beneath, viewed from the sea, which in many places has no beach, the coast rising sheer from the water, this gray rock stands out boldly. I descended to look up at it; the waves dashed round its base, the clouds above floated over it; I felt as if the rock were tottering and it was about to fall upon me—an ocular delusion the more natural, as a large mass is washed away from the bottom, and here and there huge layers of chalk blackened by the weather project boldly into the air. As soon as I saw Bonifazio, I at once comprehended how Alfonso of Arragon failed to take it.
It numbers 3380 inhabitants, and, on account of its insular position, contains no communes. Its buildings are of Pisan and Genoese origin. Old, and long inhabited, they resemble ruins more than dwelling-houses. They are built mostly of the material of the rock. They are all white; and as the walls and short towers have the same hue, the spectator has more than enough of the national colour of Corsica. It would be difficult for me to convey a distinct idea of the town itself; for it is impossible to describe this intricate confusion of narrow streets, through which the draught or the sea-breeze is continually whirling the dust, and through which, going down or up hill, one must skilfully steer his course, wandering about in perpetual astonishment at the novelty of the position, especially when the eye, finding an open space, discovers the sea far beneath it as blue as the heavens above. Beams are frequently thrown across from house to house, and dark passages often lead from one narrow street to another.
The wind whistles, and the waves dash their foam round the rock. There is something strangely uncomfortable in the sensation. The consciousness of space—so agreeable to the mind—is here lost. The lonely sentinel yonder paces up and down on the round tower in a whirlwind of lime-dust. I wish to find a piazza—to be among men. But there is no such thing here as a square. The necessary limitation admits of no open spaces; yet, strange to say, the main street is fondly called the Piazza Doria. The Bonifazians no doubt felt the need of a piazza or forum, without which a town is like a house without a family room; they consequently gave that gave that name to the main street. Want of room compelled the Bonifazians to carry their houses to a great height. The stairs are uncommonly steep, on account of the want of depth in the buildings. On many houses I saw the arms of Genoa still carved—a crowned lion-rampant holding a ring in its claw. The old emblem awakes proud memories, like the name of Doria, which still exists in Bonifazio under the form of D'Oria. For this is the proper name of those famous Genoese lords of the great family of Oria. The Corsicans hated Genoa to the death, and, when treating of the old Republic, it will be remembered that we found the same inveterate hate on its part. Every calamity which has befallen Corsica, its moral as well as its physical desolation, they ascribe to Genoa. The Bonifazians, however, are much attached to the memory of the Genoese connexion, and their history makes that quite intelligible.
There is a difference of opinion as to the ancient name of the spot whereon Bonifazio now stands. Some consider it to have been the old Syracusanus portus, others the old town of Palæ, the last of the Corsican stations enumerated by Antoninus in the Itinerary. The Bonifazio of the present day was founded by the Tuscan margrave whose name it bears. We know that, after a naval victory obtained over the Saracens in 833, he laid the foundations of this town, that it might serve as a barrier against their piratical attacks, for they had been in the habit of effecting descents on this side of the island, from Africa, Spain, and Sardinia. Of the forts erected by that margrave, one still stands—the large old tower, called Torrione; three more tower above the rock. They are all represented on the arms of Bonifazio. At a later period, the town passed into the hands of the Pisans, together with the rest of the island; but the Genoese wrested Bonifazio from them so early as the year 1193. They surprised and took the town during the celebration of a festival. They treated it with great liberality, gave it very free laws, and permitted it to exist as a Republic under their protectorate. In the register of Bonifazio the contract is preserved, which the Genoese procurator in Bonifazio, Brancaleone d'Oria, signed and solemnly swore on the Bible to observe, on the 11th February 1321. According to the terms of this contract, complete freedom of trade and exemption from imposts in Genoese harbours, was granted to the Bonifazians; also, the right of self-government. In their popular assembly they chose a Council composed of the more elderly citizens, hence called Anziani; the Genoese podestà, who was annually sent to the town as Syndic or Commissioner, had to conform his decisions to the will of this body. The podestà could neither impose taxes nor introduce any innovation without the consent of the Anziani; nor had he the power of imprisoning any citizen of Bonifazio, whether murderer, thief, or traitor, if he could procure bail. When a new podestà was sent from Genoa, he was never put in possession of the town till he had solemnly sworn an oath on the Sacrament, to preserve inviolable all treaties and statutes of Bonifazio. This deed is signed—Per Brancaleonem de Oria et per Universitatem Bonifatii in publico Parlamento—'by Brancaleo d'Oria, and the whole community of Bonifazio, in public Parliament assembled;'—high-sounding words for a little place, consisting at that time of scarcely a thousand inhabitants.
Thus did this bold little people win for themselves freedom with all its privileges, and were able to preserve it intact on their rock for many centuries.
The Genoese paid every possible respect to the Bonifazians. When one of their vessels entered the port of Genoa, it was customary to ask—"Are you from the district of Bonifazio, or from Bonifazio proper?" Hence the popular saying: "He is a Bonifazian proper." Many Genoese nobles and citizens, induced by these privileges and rights, emigrated to this rock from their lordly Genoa; and, in this way, Bonifazio became in language, manners, and leaning, a Genoese colony. Even now, the Genoese character of the town is visible not only in the armorial ensigns, but in the people themselves.
Calvi too, has, like Bonifazio, remained true to Genoa. Both towns have occupied on this account quite a peculiar historical position, and it is remarkable to find in this fearful sea of Corsican hate, two little islands, as it were, which loved the tyrannical Genoa. Let us not grudge this to the manly Genoese; their old sin-laden but always kingly and great Republic has long since paid its debt to humanity in history, and is no more.
A Bonifazian of the name of Murzolaccio, wrote a characteristic little history of his town in 1625. It may be seen in Bologna, and is an extremely rare book. I have not been able to procure a copy, much to my disappointment, for I have a great affection for Bonifazio. But I will here relate, following the chronicle of Petrus Cyrnæus, the memorable siege of the town by Alfonso of Arragon; for indeed the heroic bravery of the Bonifazians deserves to live in the memory of men together with that of Numantia, Carthage, and, in modern times, Saragossa. I give Peter's description of it, not following him through all his details; I have shortened it also, as it is too long to give entire here.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SIEGE OF BONIFAZIO BY ALFONSO OF ARRAGON.
Alfonso of Arragon, after he had examined the position of the town, took possession of a high hill lying towards the north; and from it and the sea he kept up a perpetual fire of stones from his bombs. The Spaniards had come with eighty ships, and among them twenty-three triremes; they had forced their way into the harbour after the fall of the two towers which defended it. Now, when a great part of the defences and the walls had been overthrown, and it seemed possible to force a passage into the town, King Alfonso called his captains to a council of war. He was young and fiery, and full of desire to do great deeds. "When Bonifazio has fallen," he said, "all Corsica will be ours, and then we shall sail for Italy." He promised rewards to the first man who should scale the wall and plant his banner on it, and to the second, and the third, and so on to the tenth. The Spaniards heard this with great joy, and prepared themselves for the assault. The Bonifazians suffered much from the missiles and arrows of the assailants; but with stones and long spears they hurled the enemy back into the sea, and held their post bravely. Suddenly the tower Scarincio fell with a fearful crash, and immediately the ships laid themselves close to the breach; the Spaniards sprang upon the wall and planted their standard. In the army of the king, the shout was heard, "The city is stormed." Then the marines might be seen quickly and nimbly clambering up the walls on the masts and yards; and when they came within reach of the houses they cast torches on their roofs. Now, there arose a terrible death-struggle of fugitives, brave citizens who still held their ground, and the assailants all mingled together. But Orlando Guaracchi, the heroic Margareta Bobia, and Chiaro Ghigini rushed to drive back the advancing enemy, and from their posts came Jacopo Cataccioli, Giovanni Cicanesi, and Filippo Campo, and cut down every foe who had pressed into the town, even to the last man. They then threw fire on the ships in the harbour, and the king was repulsed with great loss.
For three days had the struggle lasted, with fire and slaughter without end. Every age and sex laboured to fortify the walls anew, and to fill up the breaches with cross-beams. But alas! the granaries had been consumed. Alfonso, meanwhile, kept throwing arrows into the town with letters attached to them, offering bribes to all who should pass over to him. Two deserted, Galliotto Ristori, a Bonifazian, and Conrado, a Genoese, and they stimulated the courage of the king by telling him that within the town both bread and munitions were failing. Accordingly, the king took possession of another hill near the town; and after drawing a double chain across the mouth of the harbour, to exclude any succours which might come from Genoa, he resolved to reduce the town by blockade. The Doge, Thomas Fregoso, heard that, and equipped a fleet of seven sail; in this way the month of September passed. But the sea was so stormy during the whole of October, November, and December, that the fleet could not leave the harbour of Genoa. The Bonifazians, meanwhile, had been brought to such extremities, by the bombs and catapults, that they were compelled to leave the town, and seek shelter in the grove beside San Antonio, and in the Convent of St. Francis, as the most of their houses were now in ruins; those only remained behind who had to fill the posts of defence.
The king had been strengthened by reinforcements and ships from Spain; but, notwithstanding, he preferred negotiation, and gave a solemn promise to the besieged that, if they would yield to him, they should have permission to live free, and according to their laws. The Bonifazians purposely prolonged negotiations with the ambassadors, and as they looked in wretched plight, pale and exhausted with hunger, and as the Arragonese taunted them with their condition, saying that they would be soon forced to submit, it is said that, in order to give him the lie, they threw bread over the walls down among the enemy's outposts, and sent a cheese made of woman's milk as a present to the king. Alfonso next moved all his engines and ships close to the walls. Two vessels lashed together bore towers. The assault began afresh from the sea and the heights. To oppose the machines on board the ships, the Bonifazians had likewise planted engines on various parts of the ramparts; on the more distant vessels they propelled stones of immense weight; on those more near they threw stones of smaller size and missiles of all kinds, as thick as hail. Although they themselves were almost overwhelmed by the storm of missiles, and many of them lay mangled and dying, they yet persevered with astonishing valour. Those who still retained their strength filled up the places of the fallen—the son that of the wounded father, the brother of the brother; the women brought projectiles, wine, and bread, and carried off the wounded. Arming themselves with shields and lances, too, they took their place upon the ramparts wherever there was a vacant spot. Many of them could not carry off or succour their fallen relations, till they had hurled back the enemy from the walls. The assailants also suffered dreadfully; many were drowned, being dragged into the sea by the swords, hooks, and curved lances, thrown by the besieged upon the floating towers. Very many were dashed to pieces with beams and stones, as they were scaling the walls with ladders. In other places, the besieged threw torches, tow, and pitch upon the enemy, so that often they did not know whither to run, or on what side to defend themselves first.
The Bonifazians were now exhausted by the ceaseless contest, which had already raged without intermission for many days, and the king resolved once more to collect all his strength in order to make a grand assault on the following day. So the fight raged anew, and more terribly than before, for the foe brought every engine, tower, and catapult to bear upon the town, and almost buried it under a shower of stones, arrows, and steel hooks.
Only at the tower of Scarincio the bombarding ceased, for the besiegers feared to overwhelm the Spaniards—who had already at that point forced their way into the town—in the same destruction with the citizens. There, armed women fought untiringly beside the men, and threw harpoons on the assailants. From the ship-towers and the cross-trees, the Spaniards kept up a ceaseless shower of darts, and propelled leaden acorns out of certain cast-metal hand-bombs, which were bored like a reed, and went by the name of Sclopetus. (This is Peter of Corsica's description of a musket, which in those days was a rare, but is now too common a weapon in Corsica.) They threw also showers of sulphur, followed by fire, on the houses and men, so that many were half burnt, and others were precipitated headlong through the breach. In this way the breach, which was near the tower of Preghera, stood open to the foe. As soon as the sulphur-smoke, which had wrapt it in thick darkness, had cleared off, matrons, the unarmed, and crowds of children, could be seen carrying stones and missiles of every kind to the wall, to supply the combatants; when they found the breach deserted, they raised loud cries of lamentation. Then, with wailing and tears, the mother besought her son, the daughter her father, the wife her husband, to return to the breach. The priests and monks also took up arms, and hurled down flaming bundles of tow and slacked lime. This had such great effect that very many, stupified and almost blinded by the dust and the floating vapour, were forced to shoot at random. As the flames subsided a little, the besieged sallied from the gate.
This day had been the most severe which the citizens had yet endured; but it had been a destructive one to the enemy.
As the besieged became from day to day more hardly pressed, the more frequent became the letters despatched to the Doge and Senate of Genoa, begging them to come to the help of Bonifazio. The king, meanwhile, having been again reinforced, gave the signal to his men to renew the assault. By land and sea a fierce onset was then made in seven places at once; but into the city Alfonso could not get. For fresh wall was erected almost as quickly as it was thrown down, and armed men even placed themselves in the breaches, and formed a living rampart. Then the king ordered a mole to be thrown up, eight feet high, running towards the great gate. Thereon was erected a tower of ten stories, so high as to overtop the walls. Under cover of a shower of missiles, the mole and tower were gradually nearing the gate, when one day it was suddenly flung open, and the people sallying out, flung torches and fire on the mound, and fascines into the tower, and in that way destroyed this laborious work, which had already occupied so long a time.
Neither night nor day did the assault slacken; and nothing was for a moment intermitted by the Bonifazians which could retard the progress of the besiegers, whether it was the erection of new walls, or perpetual sallies on the enemy's works. The poor citizens had not a moment's rest; and, quite exhausted by continual exertion, were wasting away with hunger, wounds, and daily and nightly watching. No day passed without burial of the dead; death stood before every eye, and day and night the sound of lamentation was heard. Meanwhile the necessity had become so great, that they were compelled to eat disgusting weeds; and how long were they still to wait for aid from Genoa? The power of endurance which the people of Bonifazio exhibited under hunger and privations the most severe, almost exceeds human conception. Horse and ass-flesh were in those days dainties. Some ate herbs of all kinds—herbs which even the cattle refused to touch—roots and wild fruits, the bark of trees, and animals never before eaten by man. Despairing now of relief, many would have willingly ended their lives, weeping and bewailing, and many of the wounded, too, would have died of starvation on the walls, had it not been for the compassion of the women. For the pious wives of Bonifazio freely gave of their milk to relations, brothers, children, connexions, and godfathers. And there was no one in that beleaguered town who had not sucked a woman's breast.
As up to that moment there had been no signs of any help in their sore extremity, the Bonifazians entered into an agreement that if the Genoese did not come to their relief within forty days, they would deliver themselves up to the Spaniard. They gave two men and thirty children of the noblest citizens as hostages. But it was a matter of great anxiety to the Bonifazians that King Alfonso had not allowed them meantime to send messengers to Genoa. Accordingly, they built a little ship in great haste, and in the darkness of the night they let it down into the sea by ropes, on that side of the rock which fronted Sardinia and was averted from the enemy, and in a similar manner they let down the young men, twenty-four in number, who were to be the messengers and crew. The chief magistrate had given them letters for Genoa, and a great multitude of citizens had accompanied them to the edge of the cliff, wishing them a successful expedition. One after the other, the women gave them their breasts to suck before setting out, for they had no food with them. After many perils by sea, and being long retarded by contrary winds, these bold messengers at last reached Genoa, and informed the Senate that the city of Bonifazio was brought to the last extremity.
Meanwhile, in Bonifazio, they resolved in solemn procession to beseech God for deliverance from the enemy, and for forgiveness of all their sins. The procession walked from the Cathedral of the Holy Mary to St. Jacob's, then to San Domenico, and all the churches in succession; and although the winter cold was very severe, yet all walked barefoot; and as they walked, they sang hymns with great fervour. From an early hour till late at night, prayers were offered up in the churches, and every mind was intently hoping for relief or for some news of the messengers.
At last, on the fifteenth day, the messengers returned to Bonifazio in their little ship, in the darkness of the night, and having given the signal, they were drawn up by ropes. Every one in the city seemed beside himself with joy. As the messengers walked to the Church of the Holy Mary, where the senate sat in council day and night, all the people poured in a living stream after them to hear the news. They delivered the letters of the Doge, which were read by the magistrates, and then taken out to the assembled people. Picino Cataccioli, the chief of the messengers, gave them a detailed account of the expedition, and assured them that the Genoese fleet was all equipped, and only waited for a favourable wind to set sail. The senate of Bonifazio now ordered a public thanksgiving of three days; and the joy in the city was quite uncontrollable when what little grain the messengers had brought back with them was distributed among the people.
Meanwhile, the day of surrender was fast approaching, but the Genoese fleet had not yet made its appearance, and the ambassadors of the king were already pressing the senate to fulfil their agreement. "If, in the following night," declared the Anziani, "the Genoese do not appear, we shall then surrender." Then began a wailing and lamentation of women and children, and great sorrow and dejection filled every mind. But the senate called an assembly that they might learn the sense of the people about the matter. Guglielmo Bobia earnestly maintained that they should hold out, and he conjured the shade of the Count Bonifazio (the founder of the city) to fill the Bonifazians with his spirit, so that none should think of parting with his freedom. Accordingly, they resolved to wait to the last moment. Suddenly a cry arose in the night, that the Genoese were at hand. All the bells began to ring, and fire-signals blazed on every turret; endless shouts of joy rose to heaven. The Spaniards were astonished, and lid not know what to think, as they could see no sign of the Genoese. Their ambassadors lost no time in presenting themselves before the gate at dawn, and demanded the surrender of the city, according to the agreement. The men of Bonifazio, however, replied, that during the night they had received the Genoese auxiliaries; and, behold! armed men displaying the Genoese standard were seen to march thrice along the walls, bristling with lances and sparkling weapons. For all the women had during the past night put on armour, so that the number of the Bonifazians seemed to be trebled. When Alfonso of Arragon saw this, he exclaimed: "Have then the Genoese wings, that they can enter Bonifazio when we occupy every approach?" And again he directed all his engines against the town.
At last, however, on the fourth day after the stipulated period had run out, the Genoese came in reality, and cast anchor in the offing of the strait. Angelo Bobia and a few other brave men swam during the night to their ships, and horrified all with their wasted forms and hunger-pale faces. But the Genoese captains declared that they dared not venture to attack the Spaniards. Bobia laid his fore-finger on his mouth, as if thunderstruck, and then said, "We have trusted in God alone, and in you—you shall attempt it, and we will help you!" The Genoese were afraid.
Alfonso immediately turned a part of his ships towards the Genoese, and directed his missiles upon the harbour, to cut off their entrance. The Genoese ships, however, would not venture to attack the Spanish till the young Giovanni Fregoso, Rafael Negro, and other leading men insisted on their risking an engagement. But especially Jacopo Benesia, the most valorous and daring of them all, decided for the battle. For seven hours the struggle lasted at the entrance of the harbour and before the rock—a fearful struggle—ship lying close to ship, as the confined space rendered it quite impossible to move about; the Bonifazians, meanwhile, hurled down missiles and torches on the Spaniards. At last the Genoese burst through the chain, and forced a passage into the harbour; and indescribable was the joy of the starving people, when seven ships full of grain were moored in the harbour, and discharged their freight.
Then Alfonso of Arragon perceived that he could not reduce the town of Bonifazio, and accordingly he raised the siege, taking the hostages with him; and, deeply ashamed and vexed at heart, he set sail for Italy in January 1421.
CHAPTER VIII.
OTHER REMINISCENCES OF BONIFAZIO, AND A FESTIVAL.
My locanda stood opposite an old and gloomy house, the marble entablature of whose door attracted my attention. There were old sculptures on it—the arms of Genoa, and Gothic initials. It gave me great pleasure to learn that the Emperor Charles V. had spent two days and a night in this house. It affected me as deeply as if I had suddenly met a countryman and friend on this foreign rock. The house speaks German to me; and when I look at the window where Charles V. stood, there crowd upon my mind many epochs of German history, and many great names rise before me—Luther, Worms, Augsburg, Wittenberg, Maurice of Saxony, Philip of Hesse, Schiller and Don Carlos, Goethe and Egmont. Charles V. was a striking phenomenon. He was the last Emperor in the full sense of the word; for there arose against the Emperor, on whose dominions the sun never set, a little man, in a gray capote and cowl, and let fall a word which, like a bomb, shattered all the magnificence of the empire of the Cæsars. Yet are those men foolish who abuse Charles V. because he did not comprehend the Reformation, and put himself at the head of that movement. He was Emperor, and nothing else. He grew weary; and the man whose stormy life had been a perpetual struggle with powers which ruined Germany—with France, and with the Reformation—gave his kingdoms away, and, recognising the all-changing hand of time, became an anchorite, and laid himself in a coffin. I am much pleased that I have seen Titian's splendid portrait of Charles V. My neighbour at the window there is now no image of my fancy, but a creature of flesh and blood.
It was an accident which brought Charles to Bonifazio. My friend Lorenzo gave me the following account of it. Charles was on his way home from his unsuccessful expedition against Algiers; a storm forced him to take refuge in the Gulf of Santa Manza, in the vicinity of Bonifazio. He stepped ashore with his retinue, and, curious to learn what kind of land this Corsica was, which, in those times as well as now, had the character of being barbarous and warlike, he entered a vineyard. Filippo Catacciolo, the proprietor, happened just at that moment to be there. He offered grapes to the Emperor; and in the course of conversation awoke in him a desire to see the wonderful town of Bonifazio, which Alfonso of Arragon had been unable to take. The Corsican then offered to be his guide, and put his house in the town at the Emperor's service, promising at the same time to preserve his incognito. He gave him his horse, the Emperor mounted, and the little procession set itself in motion. Catacciolo in the meantime despatched a messenger to the magistrates with this announcement—"Charles, King of Spain and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, will this day be Bonifazio's guest." As Charles was approaching the town, suddenly the cannon thundered, and the people rushing out of the town shouted, Evviva Carlo di Spagna! He turned with surprise to Catacciolo, and said, "Friend, you have betrayed me!" "No," replied the Corsican; "for this is the nature of the cannons of Bonifazio—the sunbeams discharge them of their own accord when a prince such as you approaches."
Charles then entered Catacciolo's house, and was well entertained there. On his departure, he called his host, and said to him, "My friend, since you have entertained your guest so well, you are at liberty to ask three favours." Catacciolo begged three privileges for the town of Bonifazio; and these being granted, the Emperor gave him permission to ask still one favour for himself. After some reflection, the Corsican at last said, "The boon I ask is that your Highness command that when I am dead, my body be laid under the high altar of the Cathedral; for as that privilege is never accorded to a layman, the honour and distinction will be the greatest which has ever been conferred on a citizen of Bonifazio."
The Emperor granted this also. Catacciolo then conducted him back to the harbour, and, when his guest had embarked, took the horse on which he had ridden, and killed it on the spot.
Catacciolo's house is incomplete. A few gaps are visible in the wall. The reason of this is that the magistrates, out of consideration for the fortress, prohibited his erecting a house on that spot. Catacciolo then promised to construct a beacon for them at his own cost, if they gave him permission to build. The chief magistrate thereupon consented; but it was stipulated that Catacciolo should not be allowed to finish his house until he had completed the beacon. Accordingly, he carried on both buildings at the same time; but although he never did more than lay the foundation of the beacon, he completed his house, only leaving a few gaps in the wall to evade the contract.
Catacciolo was tall and handsome, and on that account went by the name of Alto Bello. His family was one of the wealthiest and oldest in the town, and is frequently mentioned in its history.
Looking past Charles V.'s house, the eye falls upon the island of Santa Maddalena, on the Sardinian coast. I distinctly perceive the tower, and see the young artillery officer, Napoleon, leap out of the ship to take it. Napoleon dwelt eight months in Bonifazio, opposite Charles V.'s house. The meeting of these two great imperial names on this spot is a remarkable coincidence, for it was Napoleon who overturned the old and far-famed imperial throne of Charles V.
Bonifazio, in the days of its prosperity, had some twenty churches and cloisters. The cloisters were abolished, and only three churches remain—the Cathedral of Santa Maria of the Fig-tree, San Domenico, and San Francesco. Santa Maria is of Pisan architecture—a large, heavy church, lost among narrow streets. Its spacious porch is the resort and promenade of the citizens, who walk about there as the Venetians do in the square of San Marco. In olden times, the Senate of Bonifazio used to assemble in this cathedral, to deliberate on civic affairs.
Farther on, towards the edge of the rock, lies San Domenico—a beautiful church of the Templars, whose emblematic triangle is still visible on the walls. It is a graceful structure, of the purest Gothic proportions, and only wants the overlaid façade to have a pleasing effect outside as well as in the interior. Unquestionably it is the finest church in Corsica, next to the ruins of the Canonica at Mariana. Its snow-white octangular tower, which the Pisans began, resembles an indented fortress-turret; it is incomplete. In the church, I found many monumental tablets of Knights-Templar and of Genoese nobles—among others, that of a Doria. Cardinal Fesch sent a few pictures to it, but they are of little value. Far more interesting are the little ex votos—the votive pictures on wood, which Bonifazian citizens who have been delivered from some impending danger have dedicated to the Madonna and St. Dominic. There are many pirate-scenes among them, right vividly delineated. The third church—San Francesco—is small; but it possesses great interest as containing the only spring in Bonifazio. Elsewhere, the Bonifazians content themselves with the rain-water collected in cisterns, drawing their main supply from the large, deep reservoirs into which one may descend by stone steps—a meritorious work of the Genoese.
Most of the old cloisters in Corsica belonged to the monks of the order of St. Francis. These gentlemen had settled in great numbers on the island, and their saint himself, they say, was once in Corsica. He visited Bonifazio; and as the citizens of this town are accounted the most religious in the whole island, I shall relate the legend in the words of my friend Lorenzo.
You may see, lying on the other side of the gulf, the deserted monastery of San Giuliano; the holy Francis himself gave the following occasion for its erection: One day, on what voyage I cannot tell, he put in to the harbour of Bonifazio and stepped ashore. When night came, he knocked at the door of a house, and begged admission and shelter. But he was not so fortunate as Charles V., for they shut the door upon him—and no wonder, for he looked wild and shaggy, like a Corsican bandit. The holy Francis turned away with a troubled heart, and laid himself down in a cave near the house; and, after commending himself to God, fell asleep, In the meantime there came a maid-servant out of the house, to throw foul water into the cave, as she had been wont to do. As she entered, she saw therein something shining, and was so frightened, that she had almost poured the unclean water over the holy Francis—for it was the good man himself that shone. I am told that the holy Francis thereupon raised himself from the ground, and with his gentle smile said to the maid: "My friend, do as you have been wont to do; I lived a whole year in a pig-stye, as all the world knows." The stupid maid, notwithstanding, ran towards the house with loud cries of alarm, and told how she had found a man in the cave, who had the strange property of giving out light from some parts of his body. The news of this spread like wildfire through Bonifazio; the Bonifazians hastened to the spot, and when they had found the holy man, they raised him up in their arms, made much of him, and besought him to leave behind a memorial of his having been there. The holy Francis said: "My friends, let us then build a little convent here, as a perpetual remembrance." On the instant, the Bonifazians set about carrying stones to the spot, and Francis laid the foundation-stone with his own hands; and after having done this, he took leave of them, and again went on board his ship. Now the convent was not named after his name, because he was not yet canonized, but after the name of St. Julian. At a later period, the Bonifazians built the Church of San Francesco in honour of the saint. Hard by, there stood on the rock in olden times a grove of pines, myrtle, and box-wood—a truly miraculous growth, as it rested on the bare limestone rock. It was forbidden to fell a tree there on pain of losing the right hand. Holy men of the bush, anchorites, sat there in a mountain hermitage, worshipping God and singing pious hymns, high above the strait, near to heaven. The wood and the hermitage are now both gone; and where they once stood, the sentinel in his red hose now paces up and down, whistling some merry soldier's air.
On the 15th of August, I was awoke by the thunder of cannon under my window. In my sleep I thought it was the Spaniards and Alfonso of Arragon, with their bombs, making a desperate assault on the rock; but I soon remembered that the Bonifazians were celebrating the anniversary of the birthday of the old Emperor Napoleon, and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. For it was on the holiday of the Assumption of the Mother of God that Napoleon was born, and both these events have now the honour of being commemorated throughout the whole of France on the same day. The reports of the guns rolled and boomed over the strait, and awoke Sardinia from its sleep. What a beautiful festal morning!—the sky and the sea so blue, the air so calm and cool, rose-red banners waving everywhere!
The people of Bonifazio literally revelled in a sea of rapture that day. The streets were crowded in every part, and adorned with national flags, whereon one might still read the proud inscriptions: République Française, liberté, égalité, fraternité. "You may believe me when I tell you," said a Bonifazian to me, "that we were genuine republicans in those days." I saw many groups playing draughts in the street; and beside the great gates, too, they sat at this old, knightly game. Others walked about the piazza, dressed in their best clothes, and all were very merry.
I love to look on a multitude keeping holiday. One feels on such occasions that he lives on a good earth and fair; it was very pleasing to see this little world-forgotten people resting a while on its solitary rock, and out of its poverty preparing for itself a simple, childlike festival. These poor people have so little of all that makes life varied and agreeable—no drama, no society, no horses, carriages, or music—not even a newspaper, except at wide intervals. Many here, are born and step into their limy graves, without having seen even Ajaccio. They live here perched high up in the air on their dry rock, and have nothing but the air and the light, and that one grand view over the strait to the Sardinian hills. One may guess, therefore, what a holiday is likely to be in Bonifazio.
The people of the surrounding country added to the multitude; they had come to see the great procession. It was strange to see so many well-dressed people filling the usually desolate streets. The young girls laughed sweetly from the windows of their houses, all clad in white, with flowers in their hair: I believe that all the maidens of Bonifazio were angels that day, in virtue of the procession.
The firing of cannon announced that the procession had begun. It issued from the Church of Santa Maria of the Fig-tree, which was all ablaze with lights, and marched towards that of San Domenico. The crucifix and some old church banners, which seemed to be Genoese, led the way; then came men, women, and maidens, with waxen tapers in their hands, and, last of all, the heavenly Virgin herself. Four strong men bore her on a bier; on each corner of which stood a motley-coloured little angel made of wood, and carrying a nosegay in his hand. In the centre, a wooden image of Mary floated on blue wooden clouds. There was a silver glory above her head, and round her neck was hung a costly chain of coral, found near Bonifazio and presented by the fishermen to the Virgin. Half the inhabitants of Bonifazio walked in the procession, and many pretty girls among them, with white dresses and pale faces, as if they had been sculptured out of Bonifazian gypsum. All bore tapers, but the sea-breeze insisted on walking in the procession too,—a huge long fellow made of white lime, and all enveloped in a white cloak of lime-dust. He blew out the wax-light of one pretty gypsum figure after the other, and ere the procession had reached San Domenico, he had won the moccoli-game, and extinguished them all. I also accompanied the procession. When one asked me how I liked it, I saw from his eyes, which were beaming with a heartfelt pleasure, what I ought to say; and I replied, "Signore mio, ella è maravigliosa." The childlike simplicity and joy of this festival-day were very touching. In the evening they illuminated the streets with a large bonfire, which had been piled up in front of the town-hall. When I inquired why they did so, I received for answer, "This fire is kindled in honour of Napoleon." So did Bonifazio celebrate the great festival, and was joyful and light-hearted; and when it was night, I heard in the streets the cheerful sound of song, and the jingling of the mandoline.
CHAPTER IX.
THE STRAIT.
In the evening, a little before twilight, I love to go through the old fortress-gate, and sit down on some point of the high coast. Here I have around me no common picture,—Bonifazio on its beetling cliff hard by, at a giddy height above the sea; the beautiful strait, and the near Sardinia. There is an old book which reckons this rock of Bonifazio as the seventy-second wonder of the world. My good friend Lorenzo has read it. If I look down upon the sea-border from my little bench of stone, I have a complete view of the path of steps which leads down to the Marina. There I see people continually passing out and in through the gate; and from below they ride up the declivity mounted on their little asses, or drive them before them laden with melons, crossing and recrossing the path to make the ascent easier. I do not remember having seen such small donkeys as those of Bonifazio, and it was incomprehensible to me how a man could ride on so diminutive a creature. I saw no one with the fucile; fire-arms are here, comparatively speaking, unknown.
When at any time I sat down on the bench by the little Chapel of San Rocco, I was soon surrounded by the curious, who would frequently take a place beside me with a kind of simple confidence, and ask me whence I came, what I came for, and whether or not my fatherland was civilized. This last question was very frequently addressed to me when I said that I came from Prussia. A very gentlemanly person sat down beside me one evening, and when we had fallen into a political conversation regarding the present king of Prussia, he suddenly expressed his surprise that Prussians should speak Italian. I have frequently, on other occasions, and in all earnest, been asked whether Italian was spoken in Prussia. My good friend then inquired whether I spoke Latin. When I replied that I understood it, he said that he also was acquainted with it, and immediately began: "Multos annos jam ierunt, che io non habeo parlato il latinum." When on the point of replying to him in the same language, I suddenly made the discovery that my Latin insisted on slipping into Italian, and that I was just about to express myself with greater elegance than even my Bonifazian friend. Two cognate languages are very apt to be mingled on the tongue if we are in the habit of daily expressing ourselves only in one of them.
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. Directly opposite stand the fair hills of Tempio and Limbara; yonder the heights which conceal Sassari; on the left, a magnificent mountain-cone, the name of which I cannot discover. The evening sun falls brightly on the neighbouring coasts, but with full effulgence on the nearest Sardinian town of Longo Sardo. A tower is visible at its entrance. I clearly discern the houses, and would willingly imagine those flickering lines of shadow to be Sardinians promenading. In a calm night, they tell me that the beating of drums in Longo Sardo may be heard. I counted six towers along the coast; Castello Sando, and Porto Torres, the nearest towns in the direction of Sassari, were invisible. My hospitable Lorenzo had studied three years in Sassari, knew the Sardinian dialect, and could give me much information about the people.
Long silent sat we on the hill together,
And gazed upon the foam-fringed coasts the while;
And on the deep-blue of the narrow waters
That part Sardinia from her sister isle.
How passing beautiful art thou, Sardegna!
Whom the luxuriant myrtles fondly crown,
And sparkling zones of snowy shell engirdle,
Corsica's sun-burnt sister, wild and brown.
Red reefs and craggy islets round thee hanging,
Rude capes that cleave the sea with zig-zag line,
—Their crimson cliffs thou wearest in thy beauty,
Like blood-red necklace of the coral fine.
My friend Lorenzo, yonder purple mountains
They beckon in their gracious calm to me—
They stir my bosom with a fiery longing,
And my heart leaps to cross that narrow sea.
Whereto my good Lorenzo thus made answer,
And spoke low to himself, with doubting air:
"Ah! the fair mountains of Limbara yonder—
The pictured lies—only afar are fair.
"They seem like sapphires in the magic distance—
Like wondrous crystal domes they kiss the sky;
But when the weary, spell-drawn wanderer nears them,
They throw the purple and the glitter by.
"They offer you their gray sides, rude and naked,
Save where the tangling briers harsh cov'ring lend;
With tempests threaten you, and with abysses,
—Like life—too like the cheats of life, my friend."
—Yon leaden level stretching to the margin,
Laughs to me, winsome in its hue of gold,
How the Sardinian lives, my friend Lorenzo,
In his fair island, fain would I be told.
"Wooded the highlands as you travel inland,
The little yellow towns in verdure hide,
The Catalonian drives—their bells low tinkling—
His train of mules along the mountain side.
"O'er his swart face he slouches the sombrero,
Pistols and dagger in his belt he wears;
In his old Latin tongue he hums a ballad,
And onwards to its time he slowly fares.
"But if far southward to the strand you wander,
Where Cagliari lies, 'mid rocky bays,
There, in the hamlets, chants the darker Moro,
To castanet and tambourine his lays.
"From Algesiras comes the Moorish pagan,
His falt'ring accent tells the distant land,
He shakes his tabour, dances round the fan-palm,
The brown Sardinian maiden in his hand."
How perceptible in Bonifazio is the vicinity of the third great Romanic nation, Spain! My room is covered with pictures about Columbus, which have long Spanish explanations, and now and then one meets a Sardinian who speaks the Catalonian dialect. Both islands—in former epochs connected, but now torn asunder—are conveniently situated for the smuggling trade. The very favourable position of Bonifazio would undoubtedly have raised it to early prosperity had trade been free. The surveillance is extremely strict, as even the bandits of both islands maintain communication with each other, although it seldom happens that Sardinians seek an asylum in the little Corsica, as it does not afford means of support. Many Corsican avengers, on the contrary, take refuge among the Sardinian hills. The police in Bonifazio are very vigilant. My pass was never asked throughout the whole of Corsica, except in the southerly-lying Sartene, and in Bonifazio. A land-owner had been my fellow-traveller from Cape Corso to Bonifazio; and as he very kindly offered me his boat, which lay at Propriano, in which to return to Bastia, and also put his house at Cape Corso at my service, I invited him to share my spacious room, which was much superior to his own miserable lodging. This man had now the honour to pass for a bandit, who, under some good pretext, was desirous to pass over to Sardinia.
When the evening sets in, the lighthouse of Bonifazio shows its light. The Sardinian coast is wrapt in darkness; but soon, from Longo Sardo, a red light replies, and so these two sister islands, as well by night as by day, maintain a friendly intercourse with their beacons. The warders on either side lead a lonely life. Each is the first or last inhabitant of his island. He of Bonifazio is the most southerly Corsican I have ever met with; and he of the cape opposite the most northerly Sardinian. They have never seen each other or conversed; but daily they interchange a beautiful good-evening—felicissima notte, as they say in Italy when the mistress brings in the light. The warder of Corsica is the first to bring out his light into the darkening night, and to say felicissima notte; then his brother warder of Sardinia comes to meet him, and also says his felicissima notte; and so they go on night after night, and will go on while life lasts, till some evening the beacon shall remain for a time unlighted. Then will the warder on this side know that his old friend on the other is dead; and with a tear perchance that night, he will say felicissima notte!
I visited this most southerly of Corsicans in his turret. It lies a league from Bonifazio, on the low Cape Pertusato. The south of Corsica runs out here into an obtuse triangle, at whose western extremity Cape Pertusato, and at whose eastern Cape Sprono lies—the latter a small rocky point, standing nearer to Sardinia than any other part of Corsica. With a favourable wind, one could be in Sardinia in half an hour. The little lighthouse is surrounded by a white wall, and resembles a fort. The keeper received me kindly, and set before me a glass of goat's milk. He lives like Æolus, in the wind. There is something strange in the thought, that the long years of a man's life all turn round an oil-lamp, and that it is a human being's sole destiny to burn a lamp-wick on a lonely cliff by night. There can be nothing apparently more unsatisfactory, and nothing more unpretending than such an existence.
The warder led me to the parapet of the lighthouse, where the violence of the wind compelled me to hold fast by the railing. From his roof-top he pointed out all his island domain and sovereignty, which consisted of thirty head of goats and a vineyard; and as I perceived that he was contented and possessed sufficient of the goods of the earth, I at once esteemed him happy, even before his death. He directed my attention to the majestic beauty of Sardinia, the islands and islets which swarm round it, Santa Maria and Santa Maddalena, the island Caprara, Reparata, and many more. The western mouth of the strait is strewn with insular rocks; the eastern is broader; and over against the Sardinian Cape Falcone lies the island Asènara, a picturesque ridge of hill.
To Corsica belong a few little island-reefs of the most irregular form, which lie scattered in the strait quite near, and are called San Bainzo, Cavallo, and Lavezzi. They consist of granite. The Romans had worked quarries on them, to procure pillars for their temples and palaces. The positions occupied by their workshops are still easily discernible; even the coals in the old Roman smithies have left their traces. Enormous, half-hewn pillars still lie on these rocks—two of them on San Bainzo—and other blocks of stone shaped by Roman chisels. It is impossible now to say for what building in Rome they may have been destined; no one can tell what terrible panic it was which suddenly drove the quarrymen and masons from their solitary workshop on the sea, leaving the labour of their hands unfinished. It may be that the sea overwhelmed them; it may be that they were massacred by the wild Corsican, or the fierce Sardinian. It surprises me that there is no legend current of a ghostly Roman workshop; for I myself have seen in the moonlight the dead workmen rise out of the sea, clad in Roman togas—grave men, broad-browed, with aquiline noses, and deep-set eyes. Silently they applied themselves to the two pillars, and after a ghostly fashion began to beat and chisel them. One stood erect among them, and, with outstretched finger, gave directions. I heard him say in Latin—"This pillar will be one of the fairest in the golden palace of Nero. Quick, comrades, make haste; for if you are not ready within forty days, we shall all be cast to the wild beasts." Fain would I have called out to him, "O Artemion, and you other dead men! the palace of Nero has long since vanished from the face of the earth—why hew pillars for it still? Go, sleep in your graves!" But just as I was about to utter this, the Latin words became Italian, and I could not. And it is owing to this circumstance alone, that the spirits of those old Romans still busy themselves unceasingly with the pillars in that ghostly workshop; and night after night they rise up out of the water, and strike and chisel with restless haste; but as soon as the cocks crow in Bonifazio, the pale and shadowy forms spring back into the sea.
I threw again one long last look on the wide-extended Sardinian coast, on the land of Gallura, and thought of the beautiful Enzius, the Emperor Frederick's son. He, too, once was, and was moreover a king. A few months ago, I stood one evening in his prison at Bologna. A puppet theatre was erected near it, and across the still, large square sounded loudly the voice of Pulcinella.
The world is round, and history a circle like the individual life of men.
CHAPTER X.
THE CAVES OF BONIFAZIO.
One beautiful morning, going out of the town by the old Genoese gate, on whose wall are carved a lion-rampant and the sainted dragon-queller George—the arms of the Bank of Genoa, I descended to the Marina and called the boatman and his boat. The calmness of the day allowed me to explore with safety the caverns of the coast, although the water was still stirred by the maestrale and played rather roughly with our little skiff.
In the deep, narrow haven, however, the securest in the world, it is a perfect calm, and there the few sailing boats, and the two merchant-brigs of Bonifazio—the Jesus-Maria and the Fantasia—rest peacefully, as if in Abraham's bosom. Fantasia is the most charming name a ship has ever borne; and this all will grant, whose fantasy-ship has ever sailed upon the sea and come to port with its treasures, or been stranded on some inhospitable shore. Jesus-Maria, too, is a beautiful name on the sea.
The limestone rocks so entirely enclose the haven on either side, that its opening long remains concealed to those approaching it from the sea. The narrowness of the channel makes it possible to draw a chain barrier across it, as in fact Alfonso of Arragon did. A strong iron ring was pointed out to me, driven into the rock. To the right and the left, both in this vicinity and farther along the coast, the water has formed large and small caverns, which are in the highest degree worthy of a visit, and which would be famous all the world over, did not Corsica, so to speak, lie out of the world.
Close to Bonifazio there are three particularly beautiful grottos. We reach first that of San Bartolomeo. A narrow excavated channel just admits of the entrance of the boat. It resembles a cool Gothic apartment. The sea forces its way almost quite to its farther extremity—farther than the eye can penetrate, and covers its floor with still, clear water. It is a rendezvous for the fishes, which frequent it, being secure from sharks. I found in it a most amiable and happy family of fishes, Muggini and Loazzi. They were not at all alarmed by our entrance, but swam playfully round the boat. The cavern recedes far under the rock of Bonifazio.
We steer out of this grotto, in a short time reach the open strait, and have the wonderfully grand sea-view of the rock, rising majestically with its broad, double breast to meet the advancing waves. This gigantic façade is a glorious piece of Nature's architecture. On both sides she has thrown up pillars—powerful buttresses of lime and sandstone, deeply channelled by the waves. One of them is named Timone. A colossal arch is thrown from one to the other, on which, high above, stand the white walls of Bonifazio; and in the centre a magnificent grotto forms a natural portal. I was astonished as I gazed on this huge and unparalleled structure—the prototype of human handiwork, of the temple and the palace. The tumultuous sea dashed its waves against the walls of the grotto; but within, all was calm. It does not recede far into the cliff. It is only a grand rock-niche—a rostrum, hung round in semicircles with clustering garlands if stalactites—a niche in which one might fitly erect a colossal statue of Poseidon. Sotto al Francesco is its name.
If we steer eastwards to the right, we find a long extent of coast undermined by curiously-shaped vaults into which he sea forces its way. I entered one of these—the fisherman called them camere. Hard by is one of the grandest grottos of Bonifazio—that of Sdragonato; I lack words to describe this miraculous structure. I never saw anything resembling it, and perhaps this cavern stands alone in Europe. The entrance, like that of Francesco, is a gigantic stalactitic arch, but it opens into the hill, and a little porch admits you into an inner cave completely enclosed. It was at once a fine and somewhat alarming sensation to steer through the little gorge; the water boiled tumultuously against it, spraying its white foam on the stone walls, then fell back into itself, and again threw up its seething tide. To listen to such wild commotion of the waters is truly an elemental pleasure; the Italian language alone furnishes a name which indicates the sound—rimbomba. The boat having been safely washed through the gorge, glided at once into a lordly, vaulted temple of immense circumference, moving over a mirror of water, here green, there deep black, here azure, and yonder again of a roseate hue. It is a wonderful natural Pantheon. Above, the cupola parts, and the clear heaven shines through; a tree bends, waving its long branches over the edge; green bushes and herbs creep further down into the fissure, and wild doves come fluttering in. The walls of this beautiful cave are almost regularly vaulted, the water trickles down their sides, and hangs them with stalactites, which, however, have not the strikingly bizarre forms of those in the cavern of Brando at Cape Corso, or in the caves of the Hartz. It either hangs round in masses, or has overspread the stone, like a coating of lapis lazuli. One may ply about through the grotto, or disembark at pleasure; for, all round, Nature has thrown up seats and stone steps which are high and dry, except in stormy weather. Hither come the sea-dogs of Proteus, and lie down in the magic hall. Alas! I saw none of them, they had gone out on a water-excursion; I alarmed nothing but wild doves and dippers. The bottom is deep and clear; shells, fishes, and sea-weeds may be seen. It might be worth one's while to erect a summer-house here occasionally, in which to read the Odyssey, and keep silent watch as the creatures of the mysterious ocean-depths come in. Man understands neither the plant nor the beast which live on the dry land like himself, and are his daily companions, still less those dumb, strangely-formed creatures of the great element. They live and have their own laws and understanding, their own joys and sorrows, their own love and hate. Unlike terrestrial animals, bound to the clod, they rove through the boundless element, and dwell in the ever clear, crystalline deeps; form mighty republics, have their revolutions, their migrations, and piratical excursions, and the most charming water-parties, too, when they will.
The coast from Cape Pertusato to Bonifazio is much broken by the sea, and torn up into singular shapes. Many organic remains may be found there; and, among other things, a remarkable species of architectural spider. This spider constructs for itself, in the sand of the coast, a complete little sand-house; and in the sand-house a little door, which it can open or shut at pleasure. If it wishes to be alone, it shuts the door; if it wishes to go abroad, it opens it and goes out, taking its daughters with it, to enjoy a promenade by the beautiful strait, if only they have been industrious and have spun enough of their marriage outfit for one day. This excellent little building-spider is called the Mygal pionnière, or the Araignée Maçonne of Corsica.
I saw likewise the Scalina di Alfonso, the steps of the King of Arragon; hewn by him, says tradition, out of the rock, close under the walls of the town. Because Alfonso, they say, was unable to reduce the city, he fell on the bold plan of hewing a secret approach up the perpendicular cliff. Accordingly, by night the Spanish were in the habit of landing at a spot, invisible from the walls, where a grotto is formed in the side of the hill, containing fresh water, and capable of concealing three hundred men. There the Spanish cut out the steps, and, in fact, had succeeded in reaching the fortress-walls, when a woman perceived them, gave the alarm, and the citizens, hastening to the spot, hurled them back. Such is the legend; so we must call it, for it seems to me incredible that the Spanish should have hewn out these obliquely-ascending small steps without being seen by the Bonifazians. The monks of San Francesco cut out for themselves a stair of a similar kind, by which to descend to bathe; but it too is for the most part worn away.
I am unlucky—the tunny is not caught at this season, and the coral-fishers are not on the water, on account of the maestrale. The strait is rich in corals, but the Corsicans leave the fishing to the Genoese, the Tuscans, and the Neapolitans. These come in April, and remain till September. I saw beautiful red corals in the shop of a Genoese. They are sold by the weight, at three francs per ounce. The greater part of the corals, which are worked in the manufactories of Leghorn, comes from the Strait of Bonifazio. But ever since the French discovered richer and better corals on the coast of Africa, the fishery in the strait has declined. At the present day it is chiefly confined to the shores of Propriano, Figari, and Ventilegne, where the tunny also is particularly abundant.
After I had made myself well acquainted with the country and coasts of Bonifazio, I prepared for my departure from this remarkable spot. I had found the people of Bonifazio as Lorenzo had told me I should. They are, properly speaking, no longer Corsicans. "We are poor," said Lorenzo to me, "but we are industrious, and possess sufficient to supply our wants. The olive grows in abundance on our limestone soil, the vine yields enough for family use, and the air is salubrious. We are merry and contented, and receive with grateful hearts the days God gives us on our rock. When the poor man returns at sunset to his home, he always finds wine to mix with his water, and oil with his fish, perhaps even a bit of meat, and in summer always his melon."
I shall remember the hospitality of the Bonifazians with as much gratitude as that of the Sartenese. In the morning before sunrise, when I was about to start for Aleria, I found Lorenzo at the Gate, waiting to wish me once more a good journey, and accompany me to the Marina. Descending the rock in the light of the rising sun, I took leave of this singular town with one of those scenes which, trifling though they appear, are for ever imprinted on the memory. Under the gate, on the edge of the rocky coast, there lies the little, unobtrusive chapel of San Rocco, erected on the spot where the last victim of the plague of 1528 died. Descending the cliff, I looked right down upon this chapel. The doors stood wide open, the priest officiated at the altar, on which the waxen tapers were burning: before him, two rows of women were on their knees worshipping; and before the door kneeled men and women on the rock. The view from above, down into this calm, pious assemblage, raised high above the strait, kneeling with the ruddy light of the rising sun upon them, impressed me deeply; it seemed to me that I beheld a picture of true devotion.