The three most interesting things to be seen in Aleria to-day are the inn, the village bakehouses, and the old Genoese fort. The inn is a poor specimen of a place of rest for a weary traveller. It contains a shop, where wine and hair-oil, biscuits and tin-tacks, straw hats and jam, are sold to the people of the hamlet; a dark kitchen; one bedroom for all the family, and another for all the guests. The breakfast served in the morning is not a tempting one. All the food that can be obtained is sour bread without butter, bacon, or jam, and black coffee without either milk or sugar. Sour bread and black coffee form the usual breakfast of the Corsican peasant, and are all that the traveller can obtain in out-of-the-way places.

In the towns the ovens in which bread is baked are usually inside the houses, but in the villages bread is baked in stone bread-ovens placed by the road-side. Some villages seem to possess more bread-ovens than houses. Aleria certainly has a full share. If the number of ovens be limited, the people have to take their turn at baking the family loaves, and only one baking-day in each week can be allowed to each family. Corsican bread is hard enough on the day when it is baked. On the seventh, when it is thoroughly stale, it requires a hammer and chisel to make a hole in the crust. On baking-days big bundles of blazing shrubs are first put into the oven, and the whole of the interior is made almost red-hot. The ashes are swept out with a branch, and the loaves are placed on the hot stones and left there for about a couple of hours.

The old Genoese fort is picturesque, but useless. Its presence, however, reminds us of the strange history of King Theodore. In a previous chapter we have stated that the Genoese got possession of Corsica about the middle of the fourteenth century, and that they kept it for nearly 400 years. The people made many attempts from time to time to get rid of the foreigners, whom they hated violently, on account of their cruel and oppressive rule. One of the most interesting chapters in the story of this struggle for freedom is that which relates the doings of Theodore van Neuhoff. He was a German, born at Metz in 1696, and brought up as a page at the Court of the Duchess of Orleans. He led a very roving life, and in the course of his wanderings he arrived one day at Genoa. It happened that at that very time a number of Corsicans had been brought as prisoners to the city. Theodore talked to the captives, and from them he learned of the efforts which the Corsicans were making to be free. From Genoa he went to Leghorn, where he met a powerful Corsican nobleman. He promised this man that he would undertake to drive the Genoese out of the island in less than a year provided only that in return he should be elected King of Corsica. The proposal was considered and accepted, and early on the morning of March 12, 1736 (that is, during the reign of our King, George II.), he arrived at Aleria. The people crowded to the shore to welcome the new-comer, whom they expected to bring arms and ammunition. Theodore was dressed in a curious fashion. He had on a long Persian vest of scarlet silk, Moorish trousers, yellow shoes, and a Spanish hat and feather. He carried a pair of pistols in his belt, a sabre at his side, and a truncheon in his hand by way of a sceptre. With him were sixteen attendants—two Frenchmen, eleven Italians, and three Moors. Everyone anxiously watched the discharge of the ship’s cargo. This included 10 pieces of cannon, 4,000 muskets, 3,000 pairs of shoes, 700 sacks of grain, a great deal of ammunition, and some casks filled with money. Theodore handed all these things over to the chief men of the island, telling them that more would soon follow.

He was taken to a village not far away, and there in the village church he was solemnly crowned as Theodore I. As the people were too poor to buy him a crown of gold, he had to be satisfied with one of plaited oak and laurel leaves. It was not long before all his money was spent. No more arrived, and the subjects of the new King began to grumble. Theodore wished them farewell for a time, and came over to the continent of Europe to get fresh assistance. He fell into debt, and was imprisoned at Amsterdam, but in 1738 he returned to Aleria accompanied by three men-of-war, a number of gunboats, and some vessels bearing stores. This time he brought 27 pieces of cannon, 7,000 muskets with bayonets, 1,000 muskets of a larger size, 2,000 pistols, 24,000 pounds of coarse powder, 100,000 pounds of fine powder, 200,000 pounds of lead, 400,000 flints, 50,000 pounds of iron, 2,000 lances, and 2,000 grenades and bombs. But to his great disappointment, he found that during his absence the very people who had crowned him King had entered into a league with France, and would no longer receive him as their Sovereign. But he did not give up hope, and after a visit to England he once more returned to Corsica, bringing with him gifts of guns and money. The people took his gifts willingly enough, but they refused to take him as their ruler, and in despair he finally left the island and came back to England.

Soon after his arrival in London he was thrown into the King’s Bench Prison for debt. In order to regain his liberty, he made over his kingdom of Corsica to his creditors. On leaving the gaol, he was taken in a sedan chair to the house of the Portuguese Minister. The Minister was not at home, and as Theodore had no money with which to pay the chairmen, he told them to carry him to the house of a tailor in Soho. There he died three days later. He was buried at the cost of a small tradesman named John Wright, who had known him in better days, and who generously wished to save the exiled monarch the shame of a pauper’s funeral.

Theodore rests to this day in St. Anne’s Church, Soho London. On the wall of the church there is a tablet to his memory, which bears an epitaph written by Horace Walpole, and which concludes with these words:

“The grave, great teacher, to a level brings
Heroes and beggars, galley slaves and kings;
But Theodore, this moral learn’d ere dead,
Fate pour’d its lessons on his living head,
Bestow’d a kingdom and denied him bread.”

CHAPTER IV
BONIFACIO

The Genoese founded five colonies in what are now five of the chief towns of Corsica. These were Bonifacio, Calvi, San Florent, Bastia, and Ajaccio. Four of these towns are described in this and the three succeeding chapters. Each of the towns possesses its own particular interest, and differs from the others in many ways.