On our return, we found the streets thronged; braziers with roasted chestnuts stood at every corner; strings of mules, loaded with wine casks suspended on each side, were returning from the vineyards; and there was a gay promenade on the Corso—ladies with no covering for their heads but the graceful black faldetta, French officers in not very brilliant uniforms, and a sprinkling of ecclesiastics in soutanes and prodigious beavers.

Professor Porazzi took us to the only bookseller's shop in Ajaccio, where we made some purchases. It was a small affair, the book trade being combined with the sale of a variety of miscellaneous articles. The préfetture, a handsome building, lately finished, contains a library of 25,000 volumes. We were introduced there to M. Camille Friess, the author of a compendious history of Corsica, who was kind enough to show us some of the archives, of which he has the custody. Among the documents connected with the Bonaparte family is a memorial, addressed by Napoleon to the Intendant of Corsica, respecting his mother's right to a garden. I jotted down the beginning and end:—

“Memoire relative à la pépinière d'Ajaccio.

“Letizia Ramolini, veuve de Buonaparte, d'Ajaccio, a l'honneur de vous exposer....

“Votre très humble
et très obeissant serviteur,
“Buonaparte[36], Officier d'Artillerie.

“Hotel de Cherbourg,
“Rue St. Honoré, Paris, le 9 Nov. 1787.”

The claim for a few roods of nursery garden was made by a young man who afterwards distributed kingdoms and principalities! It is said that in the division of some property which fell to the family after he became emperor, his share was an olive-yard in the environs of Ajaccio.

M. Friess obligingly gave me copies of the procès-verbals of the proceedings of the Council-General of the Department for the preceding years. These reports are printed annually, and, I believe, similar ones are made in all the departments of France. Those I possess are models of good arrangement in whatever concerns provincial administration. They have supplied more information on the present state of Corsica and its prospects of improvement than all the books of travel, and works of greater pretensions, it has been my fortune to meet with.

The Council-General, as many of my readers know, is a body elected by the people; each canton, of which there are sixty-one in Corsica, sending representatives in proportion to the population. The préfet, who is ex-officio president, opens the session by a speech, in which he reviews the affairs of the department under the heads of finance, public works, education, &c., &c., and presents a budget, with detailed reports on the various branches of administration. All these are printed, with a short procès-verbal of the debates, and the divisions when the Council-General comes to a vote. The proceedings are submitted to the Minister of the Interior, who approves or rejects the proposals made. Virtually, however, although the Council has no power to act on its resolutions until they are confirmed by the central government, whatever relates to the assessment of taxes, police, roads, and other works, all matters of local interest not only come under discussion in these provincial assemblies, but are shaped and decided by them. The services thus rendered must therefore be very valuable, and it is worth considering whether our over-worked House of Commons might not be relieved of some of its burthens, and the business better done, by similar representative bodies, entrusted with legislative powers so far as concerns matters of local interest. Such assemblies would well accord with our Anglo-Saxon institutions. But to give them a fair field, with sufficient weight, impartiality, and importance, a considerable area should be embraced in each jurisdiction. Durham might be united with Yorkshire; the three western counties, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall, might form a province; North and South Wales, each one. And what a valuable body of statistics would be furnished by an annual report, corresponding with those which have led to these remarks!

We gather some general statistics from these documents and other sources.