This savagely-satirical document must certainly have deeply wounded the Genoese Republic. But such is the course of events; the proud mistress of the seas was now sunk low—a little nation not far from her gates made her tremble—a foreign adventurer mocked her with impunity.
The conditions of coronation were finally drawn up and signed at Alesani, on the 15th April 1736; Theodore was elected king of Corsica for the period of his natural life; after him the crown was to descend to his male issue, in the order of birth, and, failing male heirs of his body, his daughters were declared capable of succession. If he had no direct heirs, then his nearest relation was to succeed to the throne. But the Corsicans, after all, gave only the title to their king; they preserved their constitution entire.
I have not heard that the new ruler thought of giving the country a queen; perhaps there was no time. He took up his quarters in the Episcopal house at Cervione, and conducted everything in quite a regal style, so far as all outward ceremonies were concerned; surrounded himself with guards and all princely ceremonial, and played the king as well as if he had been born in the purple. We know that he introduced a magnificently sounding court-state, and, as befits a noble king, created counts, marquises, barons, and court officers of the most ostentatious kind. Men and their passions are everywhere the same. One may feel himself a king in the dirty room of a village house, just as well as in the state-rooms of the Louvre, and a Duke of Marmalade or Chocolade, in the court of a negro king, will wear his title with scarcely less pride than a Duke of Alba. In Cervione, as elsewhere, men might be seen pressing eagerly forward to warm themselves in the beams of the new sun, craving title, and desirous of the royal favour. In a dirty mountain-hamlet, in a black and storm-battered house, which was now a royal palace, because so it was called, ambition and intrigue played their part quite as well as in any other court in the world.
One of the acts of Theodore's sovereign prerogative was the institution of a knightly Order—for a king must dispense orders. As I have related elsewhere, it was called the Order of Liberation. The knights looked very magnificent. They wore an azure-blue gown and a cross; in the middle of the cross was a star of enamel and gold, and therein the figure of Justice with a balance in her hand. Under the balance a triangle might be seen, in the middle of which was a T; in the other hand Justice held a sword, under which one could perceive a ball surmounted by a cross. In addition to all this, the arms of the royal family were forced into the corner of the decoration. Every knight of the Order of Liberation had to swear obedience to the king by land and water. Daily, moreover, he had to sing two psalms, the fortieth, "The Lord is our refuge;" and the seventieth, "In thee, O Lord, have I trusted."
The now very rare coins of gold, silver, and copper, issued by Theodore, show on one side his bust with the circumscription: Theodorus D. G. unanimi consensu electus Rex et Princeps regni Corsici—on the other side the words: Prudentia et Industria vincitur Tyrannis. On other coins a crown upborne by three palm-trees may be seen on one side with the letters T. R., and on the reverse the words Pro bono publico Corso.
Theodore gave the necessary amount of court business to the executioner, and had many a man executed because he seemed to him dangerous. He gave particular offence to his subjects by ordering Luccioni de Casacciolo, a distinguished Corsican, to be put to death; and at another time, too, he was reproached with having made an attempt on the virtue of a young Corsican girl, a licence which was not to be found in the conditions of coronation. But for a couple of years the Corsicans clung to him with great fidelity. These poor people had, like the Jews of old, in their despair longed for a king, who should deliver them from the Philistines. On the first occasion of his leaving them, their fidelity continued unshaken; and as a mark of confidence, they issued the following manifesto:—
"We, Don Luis Marchese Giafferi, and Don Giacinto Marchese Paoli, the Prime Minister and the General of his Majesty King Theodore our Sovereign.
"Scarcely had we received the letter of King Theodore I., our Sovereign, when we, in obedience to his commands, summoned to Parliament all the people of the provinces, towns, villages, and forts in the kingdom, in order to hold a General Assembly respecting the regulations and commands of our aforesaid Sovereign. The assembly was general; they came from one side of the hills as well as from the other. All received with satisfaction and submission the commands of his Majesty, towards whom they unanimously renewed the oath of fidelity and obedience, as towards their legitimate and supreme Lord. They have in like manner confirmed his election to be king of Corsica, and have ratified the law which secured it to him and his descendants for ever, as already in the convention of Alesano it was unalterably decreed.
"To the end that all whom it may concern, and, in fine, the world, may know that we will continually preserve an inviolable fidelity to the royal person of Theodore the First, and that we are resolved, as his subjects, to live and die for him, and never to recognise any other Lord except him and his legitimate descendants: we do now again swear on the Holy Evangel to keep the oath of fidelity in every part, in the name of the people here assembled.
"And in order that the present act may have all power and requisite authenticity, we have ordered it to be registered in the Chancery of the kingdom, and have signed it with our own hands, and confirmed it with the seal of the kingdom.—Given in Parliament, Dec. 27, 1737."