It was a night such as this when the young Napoleon roamed here on the field of Golo. He sat down by the river, which on that day of battle, as the people tell, rolled down corpses, and ran red for four-and-twenty miles to the sea. The feverous mist made his head heavy, and filled it with dreams. A spirit stood behind him—a red sword in its hand. The spirit touched him, and sped away, and the soul of the young Napoleon followed the spirit through the air. They hovered over a field—a bloody battle was being fought there—a young general is seen galloping over the corpses of the slain. "Montenotte!" cried the demon; "and it is thou that fightest this battle!" They flew on. They hover over a field—a bloody battle is fighting there—a young general rushes through clouds of smoke, a flag in his hand, over a bridge. "Lodi!" cried the demon; "and it is thou that fightest this battle!" On and on, from battle-field to battle-field. They halt above a stream; ships are burning on it; its waves roll blood and corpses. "The Pyramids!" cries the demon; "this battle too thou shalt fight!" And so they continue their flight from one battle-field to another; and, one after the other, the spirit utters the dread names—"Marengo! Austerlitz! Eylau! Friedland! Wagram! Smolensk! Borodino! Beresina! Leipzig!" till he is hovering over the last battle-field, and cries, with a voice of thunder, "Waterloo! Emperor, thy last battle!—and here thou shalt fall!"
The young Napoleon sprang to his feet, there on the banks of the Golo, and he shuddered; he had dreamt a mad and a fearful dream.
Now that whole bloody phantasmagoria was a consequence of the same vile exhalations of the Golo that were beginning to take effect on myself. In this wan moonlight, and on this steaming Corsican battle-field, if anywhere, it must be pardonable to have visions. Above yon black, primeval, granite hills hangs the red moon—no! it is the moon no longer, it is a great, pale, bloody, horrid head that hovers over the island of Corsica, and dumbly gazes down on it—a Medusa-head, a Vendetta-head, snaky-haired, horrible. He who dares to look on this head becomes—not stone, but an Orestes seized by madness and the Furies, so that he shall murder in headlong passion, and then wander from mountain to mountain, and from cavern to cavern, behind him the avengers of blood and the sleuthhounds of the law that give him no moment's peace.
What fantasies! and they will not leave me! But, Heaven be praised! there is the post-house of Ponte alla Leccia, and I hear the dogs bark. In the large desolate room sit some men at a table round a steaming oil-lamp; they hang their heads on their breasts, and are heavy with sleep. A priest, in a long black coat, and black hat, is walking to and fro; I will begin a conversation with the holy man, that he may drive the vile rout of ghosts and demons out of my head.
But although this priest was a man of unshaken orthodoxy, he could not exorcise the wicked Golo-spirit, and I arrived in Bastia with the most violent of headaches. I complained to my hostess of what the sun and the fog had done to me, and began to believe I should die unlamented on a foreign shore. The hostess said there was no help unless a wise woman came and made the orazion over me. However, I declined the orazion, and expressed a wish to sleep. I slept the deepest sleep for one whole day and a night. When I awoke, the blessed sun stood high and glorious in the heavens.
FOOTNOTES
[A] Thus referred to by Boswell in his Account of Corsica:—"The Corsicans have no drums, trumpets, fifes, or any instrument of warlike music, except a large Triton shell, pierced in the end, with which they make a sound loud enough to be heard at a great distance.... Its sound is not shrill, but rather flat, like that of a large horn."—Tr.
[B] There is a discrepancy which requires explanation between the sum of these and the population given for 1851. Their total is 50,000 below the other figure.—Tr.
[C] A hectar equals 2 acres, 1 rood, 35 perches English.
[D] Of raw tobacco grown in the island, since manufactured tobacco was mentioned among the exports.—Tr.