The next invaders came from the north of Europe—Goths and Vandals, those wild and wandering tribes that broke the power of Rome. They were followed about A.D. 720 by the Moors, who, having conquered Spain and passed the Pyrenees, turned their attention to this isle of the sea. About A.D. 1000, a number of lords leagued themselves together and set up a capital at Corté, in the centre of the island. They treated the people with great cruelty, and their subjects rose in rebellion and largely destroyed their power. It would take too long to tell here how, towards the end of the eleventh century, the Pisans conquered the island from the Moors, and how, about the middle of the fourteenth century, it passed finally to the Genoese. In 1768 Genoa sold the island to France; from 1793 to 1796 it belonged to England; it then passed once more under the control of France, and with them it has remained to this day, slowly but surely becoming more civilized and peaceful. But though the story is too long to tell in detail, yet a few incidents may be related merely to illustrate the quarrelsome, restless, and withal independent character of the people.
One feudal lord treated his retainers with great severity. Amongst them was a very daring man, whose heart burned at the injuries he had received. He came to his master and offered him a beautiful horse as a present. He proposed to the signor that he should come and see the animal put through its paces. The lord never dreamt that his vassal would dare to attack him, and left his friends and retainers behind. When they were in a lonely place, the vassal suddenly whirled a lasso over his head, caught his master round the neck, put spurs to his horse, and galloped away as fast as he could, thus dragging his prisoner after him and strangling him. When the man returned home, he was treated with great respect by his neighbours, for they looked upon him as a brave man, who had fought not only his own battles, but theirs also.
On another occasion, two of these great lords and their followers met one another and entered into conversation. While they were talking, two of their servants quarrelled. One of them picked up a little dog and threw it at the other. The dog missed the man at whom it was thrown and hit his lord instead. The great man was furious. He refused to accept any apology, and a quarrel broke out between the two friends which lasted many a day and cost many a life.
BAKING OVEN, ALERIA. [Page 11.]
The rule of the Genoese lasted for 400 years, during which time the people were fined, exiled, and ill-treated in many ways. Most of the great names in Corsican history are the names of the men who, from time to time, called the people to arms, and tried to drive the oppressors away. One of the most famous of these was a man called Sampiero. He was born in 1497 and died in 1567, so that his life was lived during the time that Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth sat upon the English throne. Many are the stories that are told of Sampiero that preserve for us the memories of his great courage and strength. When at Rome, a rival defied him to fight a wild bull. He accepted the challenge, tackled the bull, and killed it. Sampiero entered the French army, and at the siege of a certain town he, with the aid of fifty Italians, put 500 Spanish knights to flight. About the year 1553 he went to Corsica, and, assisted by the soldiers of France and the ships of Turkey, he attempted to drive the Genoese from the island. Six years later France made peace with Genoa, and took away her troops, but the Corsicans had no idea of surrendering, and Sampiero remained their leader. As he made little headway against the foe, he went to Constantinople and other places on the Continent to get foreign friends to aid him. While he was absent at Constantinople, he left his wife Vanina and his younger son at Marseilles. During his absence a priest, a pretended friend, persuaded Vanina that it would be well for her to go to Genoa. He told her that if she would surrender herself to the Genoese her husband would be pardoned, and the lands that had been taken away from him would be restored. She listened eagerly, agreed to the proposal, and set sail for Genoa. But some of Sampiero’s friends heard of this, pursued her, caught her, and managed to prevent her from surrendering to their violently hated foe. When Sampiero came home and heard that his wife had actually tried to make terms for him with the Genoese, his anger knew no bounds. He told her to prepare for instant death, and ordered her black slaves to strangle her. She pleaded for mercy, but he would not listen. Then she asked that if she had to die she might die by his hands, and not by the hands of slaves. He begged her pardon for the awful punishment he was about to inflict, and then straightway killed her. In the end he paid for this cruel deed with his own life, for his wife’s relatives were determined to avenge her death. They sent a false message to Sampiero by a trusted servant, telling him to go to a certain place to put down a rising. His way lay through a narrow defile, and there, behind the rocks, his enemies lay concealed. At a convenient moment they surrounded him and fired upon him. He fought valiantly for his life, but fell at last, stabbed to the heart. His head was cut off and taken to the Genoese, as evidence that their powerful foe was dead. Sampiero was nearly seventy when he died. Except for the murder of his wife, whom he regarded as a traitor to his country, his life was singularly pure and upright, and he was respected by friend and foe alike. Here for the present we may leave off our history. What remains to be told can best be related in connection with one or two of the towns that we shall presently describe.
CHAPTER III
ALERIA AND THEODORE
Aleria is a little hamlet on the east coast of Corsica. In the days when the Romans held the island there was a population of about 20,000. To-day there is but a mere handful of dirty houses. In those times there was a residence for the governor and several important public buildings. All that is left to remind us of the Romans consists of a few formless heaps of stone, and the oyster-shell island in the neighbouring Lake of Diana.
As I rode into Aleria on my bicycle one sunny afternoon, I was greeted by a crowd of children and a shower of stones. The little ones seemed quite good-natured, but their stony welcome was rather too vigorous to be pleasant. Everybody in Corsica throws stones, and most people can aim straight. A shepherd will bring back a straggler into the flock with a well-directed pebble; a muleteer will guide his mule in the same way; the dogs are so used to this kind of message that if a man but stoop to the ground, they expect a visit from a lump of granite, and fly with all the speed they possess.