CHAPTER VI.
THEODORE I., KING OF CORSICA.
Now in possession of the kingly title, Theodore wished to see himself surrounded by a kingly court, and was, therefore, not sparing in his distribution of dignities. He named Don Luis Giafferi and Hyacinth Paoli his prime ministers, and invested them with the title of Count. Xaverius Matra became a marquis, and grand-marshal of the palace; Giacomo Castagnetta, count and commandant of Rostino; Arrighi, count and inspector-general of the troops. He gave others the titles of barons, margraves, lieutenants-general, captains of the Royal Guard, and made them commandants of various districts of the country. The advocate Costa, now Count Costa, was created grand-chancellor of the kingdom, and Dr. Gaffori, now Marquis Gaffori, cabinet-secretary to his Majesty the constitutional king.
Ridiculous as all these pompous arrangements may appear, King Theodore set himself in earnest to accomplish his task. In a short time he had established order in the country, settled family feuds, and organized a regular army, with which, in April 1736, he took Porto Vecchio and Sartene from the Genoese. The Senate of Genoa had at first viewed the enigmatic proceedings that were going on before its eyes with astonishment and fear, imagining that the intentions of some foreign power might be concealed behind them. But when obscurities cleared away, and Baron Theodore stood disclosed, they began to lampoon him in pamphlets, and brand him as an unprincipled adventurer deep in debt. King Theodore replied to the Genoese manifestoes with kingly dignity, German bluntness, and German humour. He then marched in person against Bastia, fought like a lion before its walls, and when he found he could not take the city, blockaded it, making, meanwhile, expeditions into the interior of the island, in the course of which he punished rebellious districts with unscrupulous severity, and several times routed the Genoese troops.
The Genoese were soon confined to their fortified towns on the sea. In their embarrassment at this period they had recourse to a disgraceful method of increasing their strength. They formed a regiment, fifteen hundred strong, of their galley-slaves, bandits, and murderers, and let loose this refuse upon Corsica. The villanous band made frequent forays into the country, and perpetrated numberless enormities. They got the name of Vittoli, from Sampiero's murderer, or of Oriundi.
King Theodore made great exertions for the general elevation of the country. He established manufactories of arms, of salt, of cloth; he endeavoured to introduce animation into trade, to induce foreigners to settle in the island, by offering them commercial privileges, and, by encouraging privateering, to keep the Genoese cruisers in check. The Corsican national flag was green and yellow, and bore the motto: In te Domine speravi. Theodore had also struck his own coins—gold, silver, and copper. These coins showed on the obverse a shield wreathed with laurel, and above it a crown with the initials, T. R.; on the reverse were the words: Pro bono et libertate. On the Continent, King Theodore's money was bought up by the curious for thirty times its value. But all this was of little avail; the promised help did not come, the people began to murmur. The king was continually announcing the immediate appearance of a friendly fleet; the friendly fleet never appeared, because its promise was a fabrication. The murmurs growing louder, Theodore assembled a Parliament on the 2d of September, in Casacconi; here he declared that he would lay down his crown, if the expected help did not appear by the end of October, or that he would then go himself to the Continent to hasten its appearance. He was in the same desperate position in which, as the story goes, Columbus was, when the land he had announced would not appear.
On the dissolution of the Parliament, which, at the proposal of the king, had agreed to a new measure of finance—a tax upon property, Theodore mounted his horse, and went to view his kingdom on the other side the mountains. This region had been the principal seat of the Corsican seigniors, and the old aristocratic feeling was still strong there. Luca Ornano received the monarch with a deputation of the principal gentlemen, and conducted him in festal procession to Sartene. Here Theodore fell upon the princely idea of founding a new order of knighthood; it was a politic idea, and, in fact, we observe, in general, that the German baron and Corsican king knows how to conduct himself in a politic manner, as well as other upstarts of greater dimensions who have preceded and followed him. The name of the new order was The Order of the Liberation (della Liberazione). The king was grand-master, and named the cavaliers. It is said that in less than two months the Order numbered more than four hundred members, and that upwards of a fourth of these were foreigners, who sought the honour of membership, either for the mere singularity of the thing, or to indicate their good wishes for the brave Corsicans. The membership was dear, for it had been enacted that every cavalier should pay a thousand scudi as entry-money, from which he was to draw an annuity of ten per cent. for life. The Order, then, in its best sense, was an honour awarded in payment for a loan—a financial speculation. During his residence in Sartene, the king, at the request of the nobles of the region, conferred with lavish hand the titles of Count, Baron, and Baronet, and with these the representatives of the houses of Ornano, Istria, Rocca, and Leca, went home comforted.
While the king thus acted in kingly fashion, and filled the island with counts and cavaliers, as if poor Corsica had overnight become a wealthy empire, the bitterest cares of state were preying upon him in secret. For he could not but confess to himself that his kingdom was after all but a painted one, and that he had surrounded himself with phantoms. The long-announced fleet obstinately refused to appear, because it too was a painted fleet. This chimera occasioned the king greater embarrassment than if it had been a veritable fleet of a hundred well-equipped hostile ships. Theodore began to feel uncomfortable. Already there was an organized party of malcontents in the land, calling themselves the Indifferents. Aitelli and Rafaelli had formed this party, and Hyacinth Paoli himself had joined it. The royal troops had even come into collision with the Indifferents, and had been repulsed. It seemed, therefore, as if Theodore's kingdom were about to burst like a soap-bubble; Giafferi alone still kept down the storm for a while.
In these circumstances, the king thought it might be advisable to go out of the way for a little; to leave the island, not secretly, but as a prince, hastening to the Continent to fetch in person the tardy succours. He called a parliament at Sartene, announced that he was about to take his departure, and the reason why; settled the interim government, at the head of which he put Giafferi, Hyacinth Paoli, and Luca Ornano; made twenty-seven Counts and Baronets governors of provinces; issued a manifesto; and on the 11th of November 1736, proceeded, accompanied by an immense retinue, to Aleria, where he embarked in a vessel showing French colours, taking with him Count Costa, his chancellor, and some officers of his household. He would have been captured by a Genoese cruiser before he was out of sight of his kingdom, and sent to Genoa, if he had not been protected by the French flag. King Theodore landed at Leghorn in the dress of an abbé, wishing to remain incognito; he then travelled to Florence, to Rome, and to Naples, where he left his chancellor and his officers, and went on board a vessel bound for Amsterdam, from which city, he said, his subjects should speedily hear good news.