CHAPTER I.
FROM AJACCIO TO THE VALLEY OF ORNANO.
The road from Ajaccio to Sartene is rich in remarkable scenery and peculiar landscape. It runs for a time along the Gulf of Ajaccio, crosses the river Gravone, which falls into the gulf, and winds through the valley of the Prunelli. From all sides the view of the gulf is magnificent, at times unseen, at other times reappearing, as the road pursues its spiral windings among the mountains.
At the mouth of the Prunelli stands the solitary tower of Capitello, with which the history of Napoleon has made us acquainted.
The towns in this part of the country are but few in number: they are called Fontanaccia, Serrola, and Cavro. Cavro is a paese, consisting of several distinct hamlets, in a wild and romantic mountainous country, rich in granite and porphyry, and interspersed with the most luxuriant vineyards. Ten minutes' walk into this mountainous region of Cavro brings us to the scene of the treacherous assassination of Sampiero. The Ornanos chose their place well. There, in a circle, stand high rocks, down the side of which winds a narrow path into the gorge, through which a mountain stream flows, while around grow oaks, olive-trees, and brushwood. On a rock near the place are still visible the ruins of Castle Giglio, where Sampiero spent the night before his death. I looked around in vain for some memorial which might inform the wanderer that in this gloomy spot the most heroic of all Corsicans met his fate. This, too, is a characteristic trait of the Corsican nation; the living memory of the people is the only monument of their wild tragic history. Every rock in the island is a memorial stone; and the Corsicans may well dispense with monumental pillars and tablets, so long as the great events of their history continue to form a living element of their own being. For, when a people begin to decorate their land with statues and with monuments, it is a sure sign that their primeval power is gone. The whole of Italy is at present a mere museum of monuments, statues, and inscriptions; while in Corsica, nature continues to reign, and living tradition has lost none of its power. Indeed, the Corsicans would not even understand the meaning of a statue or a monument; such a thing would appear to them strange and foreign. When a statue—which he declined—was voted to Pasquale Paoli, after his return from England, a Corsican remarked: "As well give an honest man a box on the ear, as offer him a statue."
Near this gloomy spot, however, stood a group of living monuments of the greatness of Sampiero—peasants, with the Phrygian cap of freedom pressed down upon their brows, talking together in the sun. I went up to them, and entered into conversation with them about their old national hero. The people have conferred upon him the most honourable agnomen that could be borne by the son of any nation; for he is never mentioned by any other than Sampiero Corso—Sampiero the Corsican. In a striking manner has the judgment of his countrymen been pronounced in this name—that Sampiero is himself the most complete expression of the character of the Corsican people, and a symbol of the nation's power and greatness. This great man, hewn from the primeval granite of his country, is the perfect representative of the character of the island as of its history—rude valour, unconquerable obstinacy, a glowing love of freedom, patriotism, a penetrating sagacity, poverty without its wants, roughness and violent passion, volcanic emotions, thirst for revenge—leading him even like Othello to murder his wife; and, that no bloody trait (and bloodthirstiness is a remarkable psychological characteristic of the Corsican nationality) in the history of Sampiero Corso may be wanting, we find the completion of the picture in his own violent death. Living several centuries ago, his character could embrace within itself every element of the Corsican nature. The same traits are observable in Pasquale Paoli, but, from the philosophical and humanistic character of the century in which he lived, their manifestations are not so intense nor so peculiarly national.
The eldest of Sampiero's sons continued the war against the Genoese for some time after his father's death, but afterwards emigrated. In the year 1570, Catherine de' Medici appointed him colonel of the Corsican regiment which she had taken into her service. He distinguished himself by his courage in many battles and sieges, under Charles IX. and Henry III. After the murder of Henry, under whom he had been governor of Dauphiné, the League exerted themselves to draw over the influential Corsican to their side; but Alfonso was among the first who acknowledged the claims of Henry IV., and became one of the most powerful supports of his throne. The king created him Marshal of France, and rewarded the fidelity of the hero with his personal friendship. Henry thus writes to Alfonso: "Dear Cousin—Your despatch, delivered to me by M. de Tour, has given me the earliest information with regard to your successful exertions in my town of Romans. By God's grace, few, if any evil consequences have followed from these wicked plots; and, next to him, there is no one who deserves greater praise in this affair than yourself, for you have acted with unparalleled skill and courage. Receive my best thanks. Your present exertions are but the continuation of your usual decided style of action, and they have been attended with the success which always accompanies your endeavours." In the year 1594, Alfonso took Lyons, Vienne, and several towns in Provence and Dauphiné. He was the terror of the anti-royalists; and, honoured and feared for his military genius, he was equally beloved and respected for his uprightness and benevolence. Several French towns, ruined by the plague and the severities of war, were assisted by Alfonso from his own private purse. He died at Paris in 1610, at the age of sixty-two, and was buried in the Church de la Merci at Bordeaux. By his wife, a daughter of Nicolas de Ponteveze, lord of Flassau, he had several children; and one of his sons, Jean Baptiste d'Ornano, likewise rose to the dignity of Marshal of France. His fall, in the period of Richelieu's government, was occasioned by certain court intrigues; the minister threw him into the Bastille, where he died by poison—administered, it is said, by Richelieu's orders—in 1618. In the year 1670, the line of Sampiero's family, which had made its first appearance in France with Alfonso, became extinct.
His second son, Antonio Francesco d'Ornano, met, like his father, a violent end. It was he with whom the unhappy Vannina fled from Marseilles to Genoa, and who was with her when she was murdered by her enraged husband. Antonio Francesco lived, like his brother, at the court of France. Young, of a fiery temperament, and with a strong desire to see the world, he sought and obtained leave to accompany the ambassador of Henry III. to Rome. One day, at cards, a quarrel arose between him and some French gentlemen of the embassy, among whom one M. de la Roggia took the lead. The impetuous Corsican let fall some insulting words; but the Frenchman restrained his anger and concealed his desire for revenge, and the youthful Ornano suspected nothing. A riding-party was soon after formed for a visit to the Colosseum. Here Ornano, after his Italian friends had left him, remained alone with his servant and twelve Frenchmen, half of the number on horseback, and half on foot. M. de la Roggia invited him to dismount and accompany him into the Colosseum. Ornano agreed; but had hardly dismounted from his horse, before the treacherous Frenchmen—those who were mounted as well as those on foot—fell upon him. Though bleeding from several wounds, Ornano defended himself against this unequal force with heroic courage. Setting his back to a pillar of the Colosseum, he made a bold and vigorous stand with his sword, till he was overpowered and fell. The murderers fled, leaving him weltering in his blood. Mortally wounded, he was carried to his own house, where he died on the following day. This event took place in the year 1580. He was never married, and left no descendants.
I visited the tomb of this the youngest son of Sampiero, in the Church of San Chrysogono, in the Trastevere at Rome, where he lies buried, with many other Corsican gentlemen. San Chrysogono is a church belonging to the Corsicans, having been ceded to them several centuries ago, when numerous fugitives from the island settled in Ostia, and upon Tiber-Borgo. Antonio Francesco d'Ornano is said to have been the perfect image of his father; and it is added, that, in addition to his face and form, he possessed also his intrepidity—a virtue for which Sampiero was as celebrated as the Roman Fabricius. History informs us that Pyrrhus plotted to terrify this great general by the sudden appearance of an elephant; and there is a tradition that the Sultan Solyman tried a like experiment with Sampiero. The story goes that one day the Grand Seignior wished to discover for himself whether the accounts he had heard of Sampiero's intrepidity were exaggerated or not. Accordingly, when Sampiero was seated at table with him, one of his attendants, who had received proper instructions, fired off a two-pound cannon under the table, the moment the Corsican hero was about to drink from the goblet of wine he had carried to his lips. All eyes were turned upon him. Not a feature of his countenance altered; and the shot made no greater impression on him than the noise of a cup falling.
Further north from Cavro lies the large canton of Bastelica, separated by a chain of mountains from the canton of Zicavo. This rugged and mountainous country, piled up with immense masses of granite, interspersed with wild valleys shaded by the knotty oak-tree, and hemmed in by the snow-capped peaks of giant mountains, is the fatherland of Sampiero. In Bastelica, or rather in the little village of Dominicaccia, they still show the dark gloomy house in which he was born; his own dwelling was pulled down by the Genoese under Stephen Doria. He is well remembered in this district, and the imagination of the people has consecrated many a natural memorial of his life and deeds. Here it is a foot-mark of the hero in the rock—here the impression of his gun—here a cave, or an oak-tree under which he rested and ate. The inhabitants of this valley are distinguished for their powerful frames and warlike appearance. They are mostly herdsmen—rude natures, with the iron manners of their forefathers, and completely untouched by culture or civilisation. The inhabitants of the cantons of Bastelica and Morosaglia are considered the most powerful men in Corsica—curiously enough, since they are the brothers of Sampiero and Paoli, both of whom were veritable men of the people, without titles and without ancestry.