In the year 1750 this house was besieged by the Genoese. Gaffori was absent, and the defence of the home rested entirely upon his wife and servants. When the servants began to get frightened, and to talk of surrender, their mistress went into a lower room, got a barrel of powder and a torch, and threatened to blow herself and all the rest of them to pieces if they left off firing. The servants, under the circumstances, wisely continued their resistance, and held the Genoese in check until their master returned and drove the enemy away. It was in this house that Joseph Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon, and afterwards King of Spain, was born.

We escaped the crowd at last, and tried to find our way to the citadel. We wandered through winding streets and crooked alleys, and arrived as often as not at the end of a blind passage, blocked with manure-heaps and piles of disgusting refuse. Finally, guided by two or three small children, we clambered to the summit of a rock, from which the citadel could be seen on the other side of a deep but narrow valley. We were on the edge of a precipice unguarded by wall or railing, and on the edge of which the children skipped about as carelessly and as safely as their own mountain-goats. We turned our faces away from the children and their perilous amusements, in order to view the great citadel crowning a rock that rises up 400 feet sheer above the river that foams at its base. There were men inside the fort, but we could not see them. Doubtless there were guns too, but they, like the soldiers, were invisible. Not such was the scene in 1746, when Gaffori made up his mind to recapture the fort from the Genoese, who were then in possession of this mountain stronghold. There was noise enough then, as the brave General directed a steady and vigorous assault upon the walls. So skilful and so persistent was the attack that the Genoese commander began to have grave doubts as to his ability to hold the place. It so happened that amongst the prisoners within the fort was Gaffori’s youngest son. The Genoese leader ordered the boy to be brought out and bound to the outside of the walls, thinking that this would certainly put an end to the firing. For a moment his plan succeeded: the guns were silent; the Corsicans gazed in terror, first at the boy, and then at their horrified leader. But the period of peace passed quickly away. Gaffori, fear and resolution painfully mingled in his breast, shrieked the command, “Fire!” Out burst the artillery with redoubled fury. The fort was captured, and Gaffori was rewarded, not only with the possession of an ancient fort, but with the yet dearer treasure of a living son.

Gaffori died, as so many of his countrymen have died, by the hand of an assassin, and the assassin was a man of this very town. But the inhabitants of Corté marked their horror of the deed by destroying the house of the murderer, and the spot where that house once stood remains bare unto this day.

CHAPTER IX
PAOLI

Perhaps the best known of all the Corsican heroes is the last upon the national roll, Pascal Paoli. He is certainly the most popular in his native land, where he is affectionately called the “Father of the People.” In many an out-of-the-way village, in many a lonely mountain inn, his portrait hangs upon the wall, where it is always regarded with respect. Paoli was born at the hamlet of Stretta in 1726. His father’s house was a mere cottage of the usual ugly and uncomfortable pattern. When the boy was twelve years old, his father was ordered by the Genoese to leave the island. He went to Naples, and took Pascal with him. But seventeen years later (1755), when the Corsicans had once more risen in revolt against the Genoese, Pascal was invited to return to his native land and become the leader of his countrymen. The Genoese were assisted by the French, but in the end they grew weary of a conflict where they were never sure of victory, and they sold the island to the French. But the Corsicans were as much opposed to the idea of being governed by France as they had been to that of being governed by Genoa. What they wanted was complete independence, and a war broke out with the object of gaining it. This war was fought with great bravery on both sides. The islanders were united by love of freedom, and were supported and encouraged by their confidence in their leader.

“Paoli is in danger!” said a widow to her only son, as she handed him her late husband’s pistols; “haste to his assistance.” Another woman led the last of four sons to the General, saying, “I had three sons who have died for their country, and I bring you the last.”

There were successes and defeats on both sides, but finally, on May 9, 1769, the Corsicans were severely repulsed at the Battle of Ponte Nuovo. The spirit of the vanquished islanders is shown in the reply that one of them made to a French officer who had found him lying wounded on the field of battle.

Said the Frenchman, “Where is your doctor?”

“We have none.”