They knew the cause was hopeless; and Della Rocca, the declared enemy of their favoured Da Leca, had not their confidence. They pitied him, but they would not follow him; and Renuccio became a wandering bandit amongst the western hills. His previous unsuccessful risings had been followed by the most remorseless cruelties on the part of Andreas Doria, the Genoese commander, who had tortured the inhabitants and laid waste the villages which had given countenance or shelter to their fellow-countryman.
And now, once more resolved to free itself of this unpleasant enemy, the Genoese Bank recommenced its usual course of cruel persecution.
Renuccio was sought for in every direction by bands of Italian soldiers, whilst the unhappy villagers around were put to the torture to force them to discover his whereabouts.
This no man was found capable of doing. They would not deliver the man who had fought for them and for their country into the hands of his enemies; but, overcome by their miseries, they slew him themselves, and his dead body was found at length among the fastnesses around Ajaccio, in May, 1511.
For now nearly forty years, there was a temporary lull in the active resistance of the Corsicans to their masters; and during this time the Genoese Bank mitigated a little their severity, and ruled their ill-gotten possession with some apparent benevolence.
Many of the higher nobles migrated to other lands, and entering foreign service, distinguished themselves in continental warfare. The people, meanwhile, were suffering from national exhaustion consequent on the incessant destructive warfare of centuries, and perhaps also waiting to see if the present promise of a paternal government were likely to be fulfilled.
They had not long to wait. The fair pledges of the Bank soon faded away—the reality of cruel exactions took their place—and once more the indefatigable people rose to arms. The period of apparent calm had but been the moment's lull before the storm, the gathering up of fresh forces for renewed contest. And those few years had matured perhaps the greatest man ever produced by Corsica—a man whose heroism and whose devotion were equal to Paoli's, but who possessed besides a savage grandeur of nature peculiar to himself, his country, and his age.
This was Sampiero, the truest friend, the most implacable foe, and perhaps the most iron-nerved man the world has ever known.
His youth was spent abroad, and he served with equal distinction amongst the Medici Black Bands at Florence, and subsequently with the French army, where he became colonel of a Corsican regiment under Francis I., and won the friendship of Bayard.
It was not until Sampiero was nearly fifty years old that he took any active part in the struggles of his country.