In the year 1724, another measure was adopted which greatly annoyed the Corsicans. The Government of the country was divided—the lieutenant of Ajaccio now receiving the title of Governor—and thus a double burden and twofold despotism henceforth pressed upon the unfortunate people. In the hands of both governors was lodged irresponsible power to condemn to the galleys or death, without form or procedure of any kind; as the phrase went—ex informata conscientia (from informed conscience). An administration of justice entirely arbitrary, lawlessness and murder were the results.
Special provocations—any of which might become the immediate occasion of an outbreak—were not wanting. A punishment of a disgraceful kind had been inflicted on a Corsican soldier in a small town of Liguria. Condemned to ride a wooden horse, he was surrounded by a jeering crowd who made mirth of his shame. His comrades, feeling their national honour insulted, attacked the mocking rabble, and killed some. The authorities beheaded them for this. When news of the occurrence reached Corsica, the pride of the nation was roused, and, on the day for lifting the tax of the due seini, a spark fired the powder in the island itself.
The Lieutenant of Corte had gone with his collector to the Pieve of Bozio; the people were in the fields. Only an old man of Bustancio, Cardone by name, was waiting for the officer, and paid him his tax. Among the coin he tendered was a gold piece deficient in value by the amount of half a soldo. The Lieutenant refused to take it. The old man in vain implored him to have pity on his abject poverty; he was threatened with an execution on his goods, if he did not produce the additional farthing on the following day; and he went away musing on this severity, and talking about it to himself, as old men will do. Others met him, heard him, stopped, and gradually a crowd collected on the road. The old man continued his complaints; then passing from himself to the wrongs of the country, he worked his audience into fury, forcibly picturing to them the distress of the people, and the tyranny of the Genoese, and ending by crying out—"It is time now to make an end of our oppressors!" The crowd dispersed, the words of the old man ran like wild-fire through the country, and awakened everywhere the old gathering-cry Evviva la libertà!—Evviva il popolo! The conch[A] blew and the bells tolled the alarm from village to village. A feeble old man had thus preached the insurrection, and half a sou was the immediate occasion of a war destined to last for forty years. An irrevocable resolution was adopted—to pay no further taxes of any kind whatever. This occurred in October of the year 1729.
On hearing of the commotion among the people of Bozio, the governor, Felix Pinelli, despatched a hundred men to the Pieve. They passed the night in Poggio de Tavagna, having been quietly received into the houses of the place. One of the inhabitants, however, named Pompiliani, conceived the plan of disarming them during the night. This was accomplished, and the defenceless soldiers permitted to return to Bastia. Pompiliani was henceforth the declared head of the insurgents. The people armed themselves with axes, bills, pruning-knives, threw themselves on the fort of Aleria, stormed it, cut the garrison in pieces, took possession of the arms and ammunition, and marched without delay upon Bastia. More than five thousand men encamped before the city, in the citadel of which Pinelli had shut himself up. To gain time he sent the Bishop of Mariana into the camp of the insurgents to open negotiations with them. They demanded the removal of all the burdens of the Corsican people. The bishop, however, persuaded them to conclude a truce of four-and-twenty days, to return into the mountains, and to wait for the Senate's answer to their demands. Pinelli employed the time he thus gained in procuring reinforcements, strengthening forts in his neighbourhood, and fomenting dissensions. When the people saw themselves merely trifled with and deceived, they came down from the mountains, this time ten thousand strong, and once more encamped before Bastia. A general insurrection was now no longer to be prevented; and Genoa in vain sent her commissaries to negotiate and cajole.
An assembly of the people was held in Furiani. Pompiliani, chosen commander under the urgent circumstances of the commencing outbreak, had shown himself incapable, and was now set aside, making room for two men of known ability—Andrea Colonna Ceccaldi of Vescovato, and Don Luis Giafferi of Talasani—who were jointly declared generals of the people. Bastia was now attacked anew and more fiercely, and the bishop was again sent among the insurgents to sooth them if possible. A truce was concluded for four months. Both sides employed it in making preparations; intrigues of the old sort were set on foot by the Genoese Commissary Camillo Doria; but an attempt to assassinate Ceccaldi failed. The latter had meanwhile travelled through the interior along with Giafferi, adjusting family feuds, and correcting abuses; subsequently they had opened a legislative assembly in Corte. Edicts were here issued, measures for a general insurrection taken, judicial authorities and a militia organized. A solemn oath was sworn, never more to wear the yoke of Genoa. The insurrection, thus regulated, became legal and universal. The entire population, this side as well as on the other side the mountains, now rose under the influence of one common sentiment. Nor was the voice of religion unheard. The clergy of the island held a convention in Orezza, and passed a unanimous resolution—that if the Republic refused the people their rights, the war was a measure of necessary self-defence, and the people relieved from their oath of allegiance.
CHAPTER III.
SUCCESSES AGAINST GENOA, AND GERMAN MERCENARIES—PEACE CONCLUDED.
The canon Orticoni had been sent to the Continent to seek the protection of the foreign powers, and Giafferi to Tuscany to procure arms and ammunition, which were much needed; and meanwhile the truce had expired. Genoa, refusing all concessions, demanded unconditional submission, and the persons of the two leaders of the revolt; but when the war was found to break out simultaneously all over the island, and the Corsicans had taken numbers of strong places, and formed the sieges of Bastia, of Ajaccio, and of Calvi, the Republic began to see her danger, and had recourse to the Emperor Charles VI. for aid.
The Emperor granted them assistance. He agreed to furnish the Republic with a corps of eight thousand Germans, making a formal bargain and contract with the Genoese, as one merchant does with another. It was the time when the German princes commenced the practice of selling the blood of their children to foreign powers for gold, that it might be shed in the service of despotism. It was also the time when the nations began to rouse themselves; the presence of a new spirit—the spirit of the freedom and power and progress of the masses—began to be felt throughout the world. The poor people of Corsica have the abiding honour of opening this new era.
The Emperor disposed of the eight thousand Germans under highly favourable conditions. The Republic pledged herself to support them, to pay thirty thousand gulden monthly for them, and to render a compensation of one hundred gulden for every deserter and slain man. It became customary, therefore, with the Corsicans, whenever they killed a German, to call out, "A hundred gulden, Genoa!"