The French Revolution opened the way for Pascal Paoli's return to Corsica, with the prospect of again devoting himself to the service of his country under a constitutional monarchy, the form of government he most approved. At Paris, the unfortunate Louis XVI. and his queen received him with marks of favour, La Fayette greeted him as a brother, and the National Assembly gave him an enthusiastic reception. He was named President of the Department of Corte and Commander of the National Guard.

Landing in Corsica, amidst the congratulations of his countrymen, all flocked round him, and mothers raised their babes in their arms that they might behold the common father of their country. The hopes of the Corsicans again revived; for, if they had not a national and independent government, they were members of a free state, with the man of their choice to administer affairs.

Paoli was, however, soon disgusted with the excesses of the French Revolution, and, like all citizens of distinguished merit, he fell under the suspicions of the, so-called, Committee of Public Safety. Summoned to the bar of the National Convention, and declining to appear, he was proclaimed an enemy of the Republic, and put out of the protection of the law. Preparations were made for exterminating the Paolists, who flew to arms, resolved once more to assert the nationality of the Corsican people, and throw off their dependence on France. But intestine divisions again weakened the efforts of the patriots, and Corsica was divided into two partiesthe Paolists and the Republicans; the Buonaparte family at this time supporting the patriot chief.

In the face of the new invasion threatened by the French Republic, Paoli perceived that there was nothing to be done but to call the English, whose fleet hovered on the coast, to the aid of the Nationals, and place the island under British protection. The firstfruits of this alliance were the reduction of San Fiorenzo and the surrender of Bastia to the bold attack of Nelson already described.[25] The fall of these fortresses was succeeded by the siege of Calvi, in which Nelson also distinguished himself; and on the reduction of that placeAjaccio and Bonifacio being already in the hands of the patriotsthe French troops withdrew from the island.

Corsica being once more free to establish a national government, the representatives of the people, assembled in a convention at Corte on the 14th of June, 1794, accepted a constitution framed by Pascal Paoli, in conjunction with Sir Gilbert Elliot, the British Plenipotentiary. By this national act the sovereignty of Corsica was hereditarily conferred on the King of Great Britain with full executive rights; the legislative power, including especially the levying of taxes, being vested in an assembly called a parliament, composed of representatives elected in the several pièves and towns. All Corsicans of the age of twenty-five years, possessed of real property (beni fondi), and domiciled for one year in a piève or town, were entitled to vote at the elections. The king's consent was required to give force to all laws, and he had the prerogative of summoning, proroguing, and dissolving the parliament. A viceroy, appointed by the sovereign, with a council and secretary of state, were to execute the functions of government. The press was to be free. In short, the kingdom of Corsicaso called even under the dominion of the Genoese Republicwas to be a limited monarchy, with institutions nearly resembling those of Great Britain, except that there was no House of Peers.

The subject has some interest, even at this present day, as showing how the principles of a limited monarchy were adapted by such a man as Pascal Paoli to a quasi-Italian nation, than which none could be more ardent in their love of freedom, or have made greater struggles in its cause. The Constitutional Act[26] will be found in the appendix to Mr. Benson's work. It is curious also to find that in the time of our George III. a kingdom in the Mediterranean was as closely united to the Crown of Great Britain, as the kingdom of Ireland was at that time.

Sir Gilbert Elliot was appointed viceroy. Unfortunately, with the best dispositions, his government was not administered with the tact required to conciliate so irascible a people as the Corsicans. While the viceroy was personally esteemed and beloved, he pursued a course of policy little calculated to calm the irritation which speedily arose. Pascal Paoli felt disappointment at not having been nominated viceroy, and was suspected of secretly fomenting the disaffection to the government. So far from this, he published an address to his countrymen, endeavouring to allay the ferment, and induce obedience to the English authorities. Jealousy, however, of his great and well-earned influence over the Corsicans appears to have led to his removal from the island. Towards the close of the year 1795 the king's command that he should repair to England was conveyed to him, couched, however, in gracious terms. He immediately obeyed, and arrived in London towards the end of December.

No sooner had Paoli departed than discontent assumed a more alarming form. His presence and example had kept many calm who had been secretly hostile to the English, but who now openly displayed their animosity. Petitions were presented to the viceroy by some of the leading inhabitants assembled at Bistuglio, declaring the grounds of Corsican opposition, and proposing means of conciliation; while many bodies of the disaffected assembled in the wild neighbourhood of Bocagnono. These disorders, coupled with the mutual distrust with which the Corsicans and English viewed each other, finally led to the abandonment of the island by the latter; and, accordingly, between the 14th and 20th of October, 1796, the viceroy and troops, under the protection of Nelson, embarked for Porto Ferrajo, leaving the island once more a prey to French invasion.

Foreign writers sneer at the ignorance and mismanagement which so soon alienated the minds of the Corsicans from those whom they had lately hailed as their liberators and protectors; and it may perhaps be lamented that so noble a dependency of the British Crown was thus lost. Its commanding position in the Mediterranean, its fine harbours and magnificent forests, made it a most desirable position, at least during the revolutionary war. Such was Nelson's opinion, expressed in a letter to his wife when a descent on the coast was first contemplated. Added to these, its products of corn, wine, and oil, capable of almost indefinite augmentation under a good system of government, gave it great value as a permanent possession. What are Malta and Gibraltar? Merely rock fortresses, compared with such an island, capable of defence by the bravest people in the world, and possessed of such resources that, so far from being a burden on the finances, a very considerable surplus of the revenue now flows into the Imperial exchequer. Nothing was wanting but to reconcile the natives to the rule of their new masters, making it, as it constitutionally professed to be, national. This was doubtless a difficult task with a spirited people, alien in race, religion, and habits. The ministers of the day committed a great error in not giving the vice-royalty to Pascal Paoli. He was a thorough Anglo-Corsican, and perfectly understood the working of a constitutional government. The union had been his policy, and he alone could have carried it out.

Whether the annexation of the island to the British Empire would have survived the deliberations of the Congress of Vienna is another question. One does not see why it should not have done so. We retained the Ionian Islands, less important in many respects, and with a population as turbulent, it seems, and as alien, as the Corsicans. The possession of Corsica by the Bourbons was very recent, and acquired by the most flagrant injustice. The French were scarcely more popular than the English with the national party; nor are they, according to the impression made during our Rambles, at the present day. The island had been offered to Napoleon, and might have become his island-empire. Had it even followed the fate of Genoa, its former mistress, and been assigned to Sardinia, there would be reason now for all friends of constitutional government to rejoice; and the Corsicans, essentially an Italian people, would more easily have amalgamated with their rulers.

However, these are mere speculations. Pascal Paoli's retirement left his native island no resource but submission to the French, and it became once more a department of France, one and undivided. On his return to England, Paoli had a small pension from the English Government, which he shared with other exiles from his own country. Little is known of the latter years of his life. He probably resumed, as far as his advanced years admitted, the habits he had formed during his former residence in London. He died there, on the 25th of February, 1807, at the age of eighty-two, and was interred in the burial-ground of Old St. Pancras. It is ground especially hallowed in the estimation of Roman Catholics; and if any reader should chance to turn his steps in that direction, he will be surprised to see what a large proportion of the monuments and gravestones in the vast area are inscribed to the memory of foreigners of all ranks, who, during a long course of years, have ended their days in London. The little antique church, tooone of the oldest, if not the oldest, in Londonis well worth a visit, as an interesting specimen of Romanesque architecture, well restored a few years ago.

In the south-western corner of the churchyard, not far from the boundary wall, he will find a rather handsome tomb marking the spot in which the remains of the great Corsican are deposited. It bears on one face a long Latin inscription, said to have been penned by one of his countrymen, and the east slab bears a coronet, on what authority we are at a loss to conceive. So also the more humble monument of Theodore of Corsica at St. Anne's, Soho, is dignified with a shadowy crown. The mock king created Giacinto Paoli, Pascal's father, and one of his first ministers of state, a marquis or count. Can it be that, under that patent, Pascal Paoli assumed the insignia of nobility in his intercourse with the courtly circles of London? Was it a weakness in the man of the people, who, simple as his general habits were, had high breeding, and, as we learn from Boswell's gossip, was not entirely free from aristocratic tendencies,nay, is said to have aspired to a royal crown?[27] Or is the coronet on his tomb an unauthorised device of the officious friends who are said to have spent 500l. in giving the exile a pompous funeral?

Peace to his memory! In death, as in life, his heart was with the people he had loved and served so well. Still caring for their best interests, by a codicil to his will he appropriated the annual sum of 200l. to the endowment of four professors in a college he proposed to found at Corte. They were to teach1st. The Evidences of Christianity;2nd. Ethics and the Laws of Nations;3rd. The Principles of Natural Philosophy;and 4th. The Elements of Mathematics. He also bequeathed a salary of 50l. to a schoolmaster in his native piève of Rostino, who was to instruct the children in reading, writing, and arithmetic. It appears to have been the object of Mr. Benson's journey to Corsica to carry into effect these wise and benevolent provisions, and Paoli's bequests to his poor relations.

Paoli said when dying:My nephews have little to expect from me; but I will bequeath to them, as a memorial and consolation, this Biblesaying, I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.



CHAP. XVIII.

Excursion to a Forest.Borders of the Niolo.Adventures.Corsican Pines.The Pinus Maritima and Pinus Luriccio.Government Forests.

Our excursion to the forest came off on the day before we left Corte, under the auspices of our man of the woods. He procured us mules, and our hostess supplied a basket of provisions and wine; for it promised to be a hard day's work, carrying us far into the heart of the mountains.

Leaving Corte by the Corso, we soon turned up a valley to the left, winding among hills of no great elevation and cultivated to their summits. Not much farther than a mile from the town, we passed a lone house, the door of which was riddled with bullets. The brigands attacked it not long before. It was an affair, I believe, of summary justice for some trespass on property.

No one was safe, said our conductor, two years ago, outside the town. If you had been in the island then, you would have seen half Corsica armed to the teeth.

The disarming has been complete, for since our landing we have only once seen fire-arms except in the hands of the military. Then the banditti, of whom we have heard more than enough, no longer exist?

No; they have been shot down, brought to justice, or driven out of the island. Many of them escaped to Sardinia; if you go there, you will find things just in the same state they were here; perhaps worse, if our outlaws are roaming there. I will tell you, some time, the story of the last of the banditti. Not far from hence they fell in a desperate conflict with the gendarmes.

The hollows between some of the hills among which we wound were embosomed in chestnut-trees, and the husks were beginning to burst and shed the nuts on the ground.

The harvest is approaching, said our guide. Soon every house will have great heaps gathered in for the winter's store.

We were on the borders of the mountainous district of the Niolo, the most primitive, not only geologically, as we have lately seen, but in point of manners, of any in Corsica. This it owes to its sequestered situation, hemmed in by the southern branch of the great central chain. It is approached by difficult paths and steps hewn out of the rock, the best being the pass of the Santa Regina. The interior of the bason is, however, extremely fertile. We had now in view the Monte Cinto and Monte Artica, the principal summits of the Niolo group, nearly 8000 feet high; and from part of our route Monte Rotondo was seen rising, with its snowy crest, a thousand feet higher, further to the south.

The country now assumed a wilder and more rugged character, cultivation disappeared, and the surface was either rocky or thickly covered with the natural shrubbery so often mentioned. Once more we were in the Macchia, threading it by a rough and narrow path. Flocks of sheep and goats were browsing among the bushes; and the sight of rude shepherds' huts, with their blazing fires, gave us to understand that we had reached the wilds beyond human habitation. At last, a steep ascent through the thickets by a slippery path surmounted a ridge commanding the prospect of one flank of a mountain, the forest property of our man of the woods. A furious torrent, its natural boundary, tumbled and dashed in its rocky channel far beneath. Our mules slid down the almost precipitous descent clothed with dense underwood; we forded the stream, and met our friend's forester, who was expecting our arrival, and had shouted to us as we crossed the ridge.

A storm of rain poured down in torrents while we were clambering up the opposite heights, making for shelter with as much speed as such an ascent permitted. Our place of refuge was a well-known haunt of the shepherds and banditti. It could not be called a cave, but was a hollow under a mass of insulated rock, worn away in the disintegrated granite, the harder shell of which formed an umbrella-shaped canopy, protecting us from the rain. It was miserably cold; but there were no dry materials at hand for lighting a fire, though the blackened rock and heaps of ashes and half-burnt logs looked very tempting.

Under such circumstances, the best thing to be done was to apply ourselves to the contents of Madame 's basket, as we had still harder work before us. The contents were just displayed when my fellow-traveller made his appearance. I had lost sight of him in the bush while hurrying on, he having dismounted, and left his mule to be led up by a shepherd. He, too, had sought shelter in the nearest rock he could find. It had a cavity with a low aperture, into which he thrust himself head-foremost. What was his surprise at beholding a pair of eyes glaring at him through the gloom! The thingwhether it were man or beast he could not at the moment distinguishshrunk back. He, too, recoiled and made a sudden exit. Presently he saw a pair of legs protruding on the further side of the rock, which it appeared was perforated from both extremities, and the thing, serpent-like, gradually wriggled itself out. Then stood erect, shaggy and rough as a wild beast startled from its lair, one of the shepherd boys, who had also crept into the cavity for refuge from the storm. He cast one look of astonishment at the intruder, turned round, and, leaping into the bush, disappeared without uttering a word.

Perhaps he took you for a detective in plain clothes, conscience-struck for having assisted to harbour the proscribed brigands!

Our meal despatched, and the weather clearing, we began clambering up a mountain side, as steep as the ridge of a house; and the mules, being useless, were sent down in charge of the muleteer to the ford of the torrent. Signor F's forest spread over the whole face of the mountain, and how much further he best knew. We understood that he had a larger tract in another direction.

Trackless pine forestssome belonging to the communes, others to private individuals,clothe the lower ranges of the mountains through all this part of the island. Vizzavona, which we crossed on our way to Ajaccio, and Aitona, lying to the south-west of the Niolo, belong to the State, and the French Admiralty draw from them large supplies of timber shipped to Toulon; especially the finest masts used in their navy. The Corsican pine-forests have been famous from early times. Theophrastus[28] mentions a ship built by the Romans with this timber, of such large dimensions as to carry fifty sails; and Sextus Pompeius, seizing this island as well as Sicily and Sardinia, drew from its forests the means of maintaining his naval supremacy.

Our man of the woods appeared to have hardly earned, and well to merit, the noble property in the possession of which he rejoiced. Yet he described himself as poor in the midst of his seeming wealth, impoverished to get together vast tracts of country, from which, at present, he received no return. His object was to obtain a market for sale of his timber, which he said could be floated down the rivers to the sea-coast at a moderate expense. Having seen, as we had, the Norwegian timber floating down rivers, precipitated over rapids, and rafted over immense lakes, during a flottage to the sea which it sometimes takes two years to accomplish[29], we could find no difficulty in believing that advantage might be taken of the rivers on either watershed of the central chain in Corsica, to bear this, the only wealth of these elevated regions, to the coast, which is nowhere more than about fifty miles distant. Of the anchorage and depth of water at the mouths of the rivers, I have no precise information, except so far that Signor F assured us there would be no difficulty in shipping his timber.

I had not counted on such an exhausting effort as climbing a thousand feet nearly perpendicular on the rocky and rugged surface of a mountain forest in Corsica demanded. Accustomed to traverse some of the finest pine-forests of Norway in a light carriole on excellent roads, or to canter along their avenues on little spirited horses, its native breed, without any feeling of fatigue, I had imagined our present enterprise to be much easier than it proved. Indeed, had it not been that the tangled roots of the pines, forming a network on the denuded surface of the rocks, afforded secure footing and a firm hold, and that, clasping the giant stems, one could take breath on the edge of the shelving cliffs, I should never have scrambled, and pulled myself, up to the summit.







Our man of the woods, notwithstanding his great bulk, was agile as a mountain-goat, leaping from crag to crag, and striking off in every direction where he could show us trees of the largest growth. Marmocchi mentions four species of the pine in his catalogue of the indigenous trees growing in Corsica. Of two of these, Pinus Pinea (the stone pine), and Pinus Sylvestris (our common Scotch fir), I did not remark any specimens in the forests we had an opportunity of examining, nor do they equal the others in grandeur and value. But both the Pinus Lariccio and the Pinus Maritima are magnificent trees. They were mingled in the forest I am now describing, the Lariccio prevailing.

The Pinus Maritima, so well known to all travellers in Italy and Greece, and to others by its picturesque effect in the landscapes of Claude, has often its trunk clear of boughs till near the top, which spreads out in an umbrella-shaped head, with a dense mass of foliage; and, where the stem is not so denuded, the tree has the same rounded contour of boughs. Both are figured and described in Lambert's magnificent work on the GENUS PINUS; but, unfortunately, from very insignificant specimens; those of the Pinus Maritima being taken from a tree at Sion House, only twenty feet high. The spines of the Pinus Maritima are longer than those of the Pinus Lariccio, and the branches more pensile. The engravings for the present work are from specimens brought from Corsica. Mr. Lambert's description, however, coincides with my own observations in the Corsican forests. He says:The branches are very numerous, and bear long filiform leaves. The cones are nearly the same size as Pinus Rigida. They are so remarkably smooth and glossy, that they at once distinguish their species. In shedding their seeds, they seem to expand very little.[30] Mr. Lambert considers it to be the same species as the , Pinus Picea of Greece, which grow on the high mountains, Olympus, Pindus, Parnassus, &c.; and quotes an extract from Dr. Sibthorp's papers, published in Walpole's Turkey, remarking that the furnished a useful resin, used in Attica to preserve wine from becoming acid, and supplying tar and pitch for shipping. The resinous parts of the wood, he says, are cut into small pieces, and serve for candles.

The Pinus Lariccio is more disposed to retain its lower branches than the Pinus Maritima, and has a more angular character both in the boughs and the footstalks of its tassels. The spines are shorter. The boughs slightly droop, but by no means in the degree of the spruce fir or the larch. From this circumstance, however, it probably derives its name, though it has nothing else in the slightest degree common with the larch; and writers who speak of the Corsican larch betray their readers into serious error. The Pinus Lariccio is figured in Mr. Lambert's work from two specimens in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, about thirty feet high and three feet in girth, in 1823. Their age is not mentioned. Don, quoted in this work, remarks that this pine is totally distinct from all the varieties of Pinus Sylvestris, with which, however, it in some respects agrees. It differs in the branches being shorter and more regularly verticellate. The leaves are one-third longer; cones shorter, ovate, and quite straight, with depressed scales, opening freely to shed the seed. The wood is more weighty, resinous, and, consequently, more compact, stronger, and more flexible than Pinus Sylvestris. Its bark is finer and much more entire. The Pinus Lariccio is also at once distinguishable from the Pinus Maritima growing in the same forest, by the bark alone. Drawings are here given of (1) the exterior and (2) interior coats, from specimens brought from Corsica. They are very thick, and peel off in large flakes, the inner layer being most delicately veined, and of a rich crimson hue.



I observed, says Mr. Hawkins, quoted by Lambert, on Cyllene, Taygetus, and the mountains of Thasos, a sort of fir, which, though called by the inhabitants, and resembling that of the lower regions, has the foliage much darker, and the growth of the tree more regular and straight. The elevated region on which it grew leads me to suspect it must be different from the common .[31] Mr. Lambert adds:The Pinus Lariccio is, I have no doubt, the tree here mentioned, especially as it is known to grow in Greece, and has been found by Mr. Webb near the summit of Mount Ida, in Phrygia.[32] We are inclined, however, to think that this remark requires confirmation by more exact details.

The Pinus Lariccio grows to a greater height than the Pinus Maritima. In this forest Signor F estimated some of the finest specimens of the latter at from sixty to seventy feet in length, while those of the Lariccio could not be less than 120 feet, and perhaps more, with an average circumference of about nine feet. Some little experience enabled us to confirm this estimate.

But these dimensions are often exceeded. In the neighbouring forest of Valdianello, which, again, abuts on that of Aitona, the chief of the government reserves, there lately stood a Pinus Lariccio, called by the Corsicans Le Roi des Arbres. At five feet from the ground its girth was upwards of nineteen feet. The height of the tree is not mentioned. The king of the forest is dead, but it boasts a successor worthy of its honours, the girth being, as Marmocchi relates on report, twenty-six feet at one mètre (three feet three inches) from the ground, and only reduced to twenty-one feet where the trunk is fifty-eight feet high. Its entire height is 150 feet, and its branches cover a circumference nearly 100 feet in diameter.

These dimensions are large for European pines, about averaging those of the Norwegian. Growing in a rocky soil, I can easily believe that the timber is, as represented, extremely durable. It was surprising to see in Signor F's forest trees of such magnitude springing from fissures in the granite cliffs, and from ledges of rocks having only a scanty covering of barren soil. The growth must be slow; by counting the rings in some of the fallen trees, I calculated that they had stood about two centuries. The choicest specimens were usually grouped on some platform, or in hollows of the precipitous cliffs. In these positions they are often exposed to the worst of enemies, such spots being the haunts of the brigands and shepherds; and it was lamentable to observe the destruction caused by their fires in all parts of the wood. Huge half-burnt logs lay at the foot of some of the finest pines, and the flames had not only scorched all vegetation within reach, but eaten into the heart of the trees.

This may be considered as one of the few virgin forests remaining in Corsica. The vast consumption by the Genoese, and afterwards by the French, governments, has greatly exhausted the forests; and it is only in the inaccessible parts of the country, where there are no roads, that timber of large dimensions is found. Even here they were felling the smaller trees, sawing them into planks, and carrying them away on mules, one plank balancing another on each side of the pack-saddle. We ventured to suggest to our man of the woods the advantages of sawmills, a machinery of the simplest possible construction, adopted in North America, Norway, and all forest countries, where, as here, there is abundant water-power. All such industrial resources are wanting in Corsica, but our friend was too shrewd not to be alive to the value of the suggestion.

Our course through the forest had led us round to the flank of the mountain, shelving down to the torrent we forded on our arrival. A descent is generally considered an easy affair: so we found this in comparison with the ascent; but the declivity was formidable, there being no sort of path, and we had to work our way over and amongst huge masses of rock and slippery boulders, and jumping from crag to crag, sliding, rolling, and tumbling, not without some severe falls, we at last reached the bottom.

Remounting our mules, a very pleasant changeactive, light-stepping beasts as they were,we rode slowly on our return to Corte, often looking back at the broad forest-clad mountains, with the snowy dome of Monte Rotondo in the distance. Signor F, anxious to supply us with all the information we required, lost no opportunity of pointing out remarkable objects.

Do you see that paése? he said, pointing to some grey buildings about five miles off, on the right bank of the Golo; that is Soveria, the birth-place of Cervione, one of Napoleon's best generals. He fell in the battle of Ratisbon. His last words to the emperor, when ordered on a desperate attack, said our friend, with Corsican feeling were, Je vous recommande ma famille.

Valery relates an amusing anecdote of this General Cervione. Having the command at Rome, which he exercised with great severity, it became his duty to convey the order to Pope Pius VII. for abdicating his temporal power and being sent away, which he executed harshly. When Pius VII. was afterwards at the Tuileries, Cervione, with other generals, came to pay him his respects. The pope, struck by his pure Italian pronunciation, complimented him on it. _Santo Padre_, said Cervione, _sono quasi Italiano._Come?_Sono Corso._Oh! oh!_Sono Cervione._Oh! oh! oh!_ At this terrible recollection the pope shrank aghast, hastily retreating to the fireside.

Further on, said our conductor, I see it plainly, there is an old grey house on the top of a rock; a poor place, but the birthplace of Pascal Paoli. He resided there after he became our chief, but would not have the home of his fathers altered.

Near Soveria is Alando, the native place of Sambuccio, the patriot leader in the first insurrection against the Genoese. All the neighbourhood of Corte is classic ground in Corsican history.

We returned there to a late dinner.



CHAP. XIX.

The Forest of Asco.Corsican Beasts of Chase.The Moufflon.Increase of Wild Animals.The last of the Banditti.

Our good man of the woods joined us at dinner. It was a just source of pride to him that he had shown his magnificent forest to foreigners as enthusiastic as himself, and who might, perhaps, forward his designs for making it profitable. In this view he now wrote the subjoined particulars.[33]

We had already inquired what sport such covers afforded, and the account given of deer and wild boars, not to speak of smaller game, was very tempting. There were bears in the forests in the time of Flippini the historian, but for the last century they have been extinct. There are no wolves; but the foxes are plentiful, and so strong that they venture to attack the flocks of sheep and goats. The Corsican cerf is like the red deer. Their colour is ferruginous. In size they are a little larger than fallow deer with a heavier body, and stronger horns, springing upright, spreading less than any other variety, and slightly palmated. Both male and female have a dark line down the back, rump, and scut. The moufflon or muffori is a most curious animal, almost peculiar, I believe, to this island and Sardinia, though a variety of the species is found in Morocco. Something between a sheep, a deer, and a goat, the male has spiral horns like a goat, rather turned back, with the legs and hind-quarter of a goat, but the head of a sheep. The colour is a reddish brown, with some admixture of black and white, brown predominating. The skin is fine-grained, not woolly but fine-haired, like a deer. It is extremely agile, jumping from rock to rock with surprising leaps, and so wild that, like the chamois and the reindeer, it frequents only the highest mountains, close to the snow-line, in summer, descending, as the snow extends, to lower regions. When the winters are very severe, and the snow covers the ground, it is driven into some of the higher valleys, and has been known to take refuge in the stables among the tame sheep and goats. The moufflon goes in troops of from four to twenty. The females drop their young on the edge of the snow in the month of May. There are full-grown specimens of the moufflon in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, and in the Jardin de Plantes, at Paris.

Of smaller game, Corsica abounds in hares and red partridges, the only species found in the island. In winter there are woodcocks, snipes, and water-fowl, and a grande chasse of thrushes, which, feeding on the berries of the arbutus, the lentiscus, and the myrtle, become very fat, have a fine flavour, and are esteemed a great delicacy.

But all these varieties of game were forbidden fruit, as a permis to carry fire-arms could not be obtained by any class of persons, or for any purpose whatever. The shepherds have only their dogs to protect their flocks. If the prohibition continues long, the wild animals must become the pest of the island, and with their natural increase there will be splendid shooting when the use of fire-arms is again allowed. But for the hope of better sport in Sardinia, we thought of getting up a boar hunt, with spears, in the fashion so picturesquely seen in old pictures, and a much more spirited affair than shooting pigs. For deer and birds there is nothing left but to fall back on bows and arrows, as long as the Corsicans cannot be trusted with fire-arms, lest the genus homo should be their prey.

It was the last evening we spent with our man of the woods. He was very communicative, and, among other things, told us many stories of the heroic deeds of his countrymen in former times, and of the wild life of Corsica, which has only just expired. I preserve one of his tales, relating a recent event, which happily closes the bloody chapter of Corsican banditism.

The Last of the Banditti.

Two brothers, Pierre-Jean and Xavier-Saverio Massoni, men of extraordinary vigour and desperate courage, banded with Arrhigi, another determined outlaw, had for many years been the terror of the wild district of the Niolo in which they harboured, and of the neighbouring country. Many were the families they had reduced to misery by cutting off their fathers and brothers; but they had numerous friends, whom they protected. They shared the scanty fare of the shepherds in the mountains, and the people entertained them in their houses; some, par amitié, with cordiality and kindness, others from fear. Such was the renown of these banditti chiefs that the authorities used every effort to exterminate them, offering large rewards for their heads, and threatening with severe penalties any who should supply them with the means of existence.

At length a shepherd, who had received some injury from one of the band, betrayed their hiding-place in the fastnesses of the Niolo to the gendarmes. Led by him through tracks known only to the shepherds and banditti, before daylight on a morning of the month of October, 1851, a body of the gendarmerie, twenty or thirty in number, reached the neighbourhood in which the three resolute bandits were concealed. It was a place called Penna-Rosa, near Corscia, a village in the canton of Calacuccia, not very far from Corte.

The bandits are in the habit of separating for their greater security. At this time Pierre Massoni was alone in one of the caves among the rocks; Xavier Massoni and Arrhigi together occupied another. The gendarmes, as active and resolute as the banditti, their mortal foes, with whom they often had desperate encounters, crept towards the cave occupied by Pierre, who, seeing the disparity of numbers, crept into the bush, and attempted to escape, probably intending to join his friends, and with them make a determined resistance. The gendarmes fired a volley, and Pierre fell mortally wounded.

Xavier and Arrhigi had, somehow, received intelligence of the approach of the gendarmes, and hastening to the spot found them posted in front of the cave. A shot from each of the brigands brought down two of their enemies; and during the confusion caused by this unexpected diversion, the gendarmes drawing off, Xavier Massoni, supposing that his brother was concealed in the cave, shouted to him

Pierre, come out; I have cleared the way.

This cry drew the attention of the gendarmes, and at the same moment he was shot in the thigh by one of the party. A general fire was then opened, but Xavier contrived to creep into the bush, and afterwards made his escape over the mountains, while Arrhigi fled for refuge to a deep and almost inaccessible cavern. The party followed him, and posted themselves, under cover of the rocks, near the mouth of the cave into which they supposed he had retired, for they had not seen him enter; and as the access was so narrow that it could only be attempted by one at a time, the attempt to reconnoitre would have been certain death.

The gendarmes, though numbering at least twenty to one, thus held at bay by one man, the bravest of the brave, sent a messenger to Corte to demand a reinforcement. Four hundred troops were detached for this service. They were accompanied by the sous-préfet, the procureur imperial, a captain of engineers, and men with ammunition to blow up the cave. It was a four hours' march from Corte, and they arrived late in the day.

Meanwhile the gendarmes beleaguered the spot, keeping under cover. The brave Arrhigi kept close, watchful no doubt. He must have had a stout heart; but we do not paint, we only give the leading details; the reader's imagination will supply the rest.

At length the troops marched up. A French gendarme, boldly or incautiously, approached the entrance; he was shot dead on the spot. Then, no doubt was left that Arrhigi was there. Either to spare life, or because no one was found bold enough to lead the forlorn hope in storming the entrance, it was resolved to blow up the cave. The engineers set to work, a shaft was sunk from above, a barrel of gunpowder was lodged in itthe explosion was ineffectual; it left the massive vault and sides of the narrow cavern as firm as ever. It was too deep to be reached without regular mining. Besides, the night was bitter, and the whole party shaking with cold.

Engineering operations were abandoned. As they could neither beard the bandit in his den, nor blow him up, it was determined to starve him out. The troops bivouacked, fires were lighted, and sentinels posted. The siege was converted into a blockade, all in due military order.

Centinelle, prend garde à vous! was passed from post to post. Centinelle, prend garde à moi! answered the bold Arrhigi from his rocky hold.

The blockade was maintained for five days and four nights, not without some loss on the part of the besiegers, for Arrhigi opened fire from time to time, as opportunity offered, and no less than seven of his enemies were struck down by his unerring bullets. Some were wounded.

Brave soldiers of Napoleon, cried Arrhigi, carry off your wounded comrades, who want your assistance.

It seems extraordinary that 400 troops should be held at bay by a single man for so long a period; but such was the fact. Perhaps the officials hoped to take him alive, or they might wish to spare a further effusion of blood in actual conflict with the desperate bandit. Arrhigi's cavern had a small store of provisions and some gourds of water. When these were expended, he resolved on making a last effort to force his way through the troops. Could he have stood out a day longer, he might probably have escaped, as the weather became so tempestuous that it would have been impossible for them to maintain their exposed position in those bleak mountains.

On the fourth night, just before the dawn of day, he made the attempt. Dashing from the cavern, and shooting down the nearest sentries right and left with his double-barrelled gun, he gained the thickets. An alarm was raised, and there was a general pursuit. Arrhigi fled towards the Golo, intending, probably, to place that river between him and his pursuers. It was now daylight, and they were upon him before he reached it. Again brought to bay, he took his stand sheltered by a rock. The soldiers cried out to him to surrender; but the resolute bandit, refusing quarter, continued to resist till he was shot through the head.

We left Xavier Massoni escaping into the maquis, but slightly wounded in the thigh. The gendarmes were so occupied with his brother Pierre and Arrhigi, that he reached, unpursued, a distant forest in the heart of the mountains. Soon, however, an officer of the Gendarmerie Corse, with a detachment of forty or fifty men, was laid on his track. After seven days they discovered the lone cave in which, the last of his band, he had hoped for concealment. It was high up the face of the mountain, but the party scaled it, and summoning Xavier to surrender, he gave his parole. Just at that moment a gendarme offering a shot, the bandit levelled his gun at him and killed him. He then threw down his arms and came out of the cave, prepared to surrender himself. A sentry posted near, imagining that he intended to escape, shot him dead without challenging him or allowing him time to give himself up. The sentry was punished, as they wished to take the bandit alive, hoping that he would discover those who were in league with him.

Thus fell, with a gallantry worthy of a better cause, these renowned banditti chiefs, who for many years had infested the country, and filled it with alarm and grief. The rest of the band dispersed, were killed, or taken prisoners. Arrhigi's heroic defence closed the series of romantic stories on which the Corsicans delight to dwell. His example might have encouraged the outlaws to emulate his daring resistance; but the unusual force brought against him convinced them that the authorities were no longer to be trifled with. The brigands became thoroughly disheartened, and we hear of no more desperate encounters with the gendarmerie. In the course of the following year, the deep solitudes of the Corsican forests and mountains, echoing no longer to the crack of the rifle, were left in the undisturbed possession of the shepherds and their flocks, the foxes and the moufflons.

There is another version of the story of the Massoni and Arrhigi, cleverly wrought up, and giving it, what was scarcely needed, a more romantic character. It differs from that here given in many of the circumstances, and in passing, perhaps, from hand to hand, even the scene has been transferred to the neighbourhood of Monte Rotondo, many miles distant from the spot where the events occurred. My informant was not likely to omit any actual occurrence of a striking nature; and as he lived at Corte, and his occupation often led him to the canton of Callacuccia, he had the best opportunities of learning the facts, if indeed he was not present at the time. His simple narrative is therefore adhered to.



CHAP. XX.

Leave Corte for Ajaccio.A legend of Venaco.Arrival at Vivario.

The distance from Corte to Ajaccio is about fifty miles; the most interesting objects on the road being the great forest of Vizzavona, and Bocagnono embosomed in chestnut woods. In order to take these leisurely, mules were bespoken at Vivario, a mountain village at the foot of Monte d'Oro, as far as which we determined to avail ourselves of the diligence passing through Corte, en route from Bastia to Ajaccio. For the first two stages after leaving Corte we knew that there was little temptation to linger on the way; and it is unadvisable to waste time and strength by walking or riding on high-roads when coach or rail will hurry you on to a good starting point for independent rambling. To travel systematically from one great town to another by such conveyances, with perhaps an occasional excursion in the neighbourhood, is a very different affair.

We were called at midnight, and walking to the bureau, shortly afterwards the voiture came rumbling up, a small primitive vehicle, drawn by three mules. It contained five passengers, booked through; three rough fellows, all smoking, and a woman with a squalling bambino, dignified by the name of Auguste. Under these circumstances, we proposed taking our seat on the roof, as there was no banquette. The commis du bureau objected;we should fall off, and he would be blamed; it was contre les régles; and every traveller knows how despotically the rules are administered by foreign officials. He must submit to be a mere machine in their hands, to be stowed away and conveyed like his portmanteau. The rules are, however, generally enforced with great civility; but the commis was not civil. Early rising, or sitting up late, had put him out of temper, and the passion into which he worked himself about this trifle was very amusing. There was room inside, and why could not messieurs accommodate themselves in the voiture like sensible people?

We did not lose our temper, and carrying our point, had every reason to rejoice in our victory. The moon was up, and showed the sort of scenery through which we passed, by a very hilly but well-engineered road, to great advantage, in its various aspects. Now we were slowly ascending a bare hill-side in the full light; then plunging into hollows buried in the deepest shade of chestnut woods branching over the road. Then there were scattered groups of the rugged ilex, with its pale green leaves silvered by the moonbeams; and, where the land was cultivated, there was the livelier green of the young wheat, and the dark verdure of luxuriant crops of sainfoin: scarcely a house was passed; a solitary habitation is a rare sight in Corsica.

Our position also gave us the advantage of the voiturier's conversation, which, under the inspiration of the scene, the woods, and moonlight on a lonely road, was well spiced with stories of banditti. At that corner they stole from the thicket, and gave their victim a mortal stab. There was a cross over his grave, but it has been removed. A deadly shot from behind that grey rock struck down another. Here they had a bloody fight with the sbirri. Such tales, as it has been already remarked, are heard everywhere. I forget the particulars; but they are all variations of one wild strain, of which the key-note is blood.

One legend of another kind I remember. The voiturier related it as we approached Venaco:

A long while agoit was in the tenth century, I believethere lived here a Count of Corsica, by name Arrhigo Colonna, who was so handsome that he was called Il Bel Messere. He had a beautiful wife and seven beautiful children. Feuds arose in the country, and his enemies, jealous of his great power, slew the Count and his seven children, and threw their bodies into a little lake among the hills. There was deep lamentation among the vassals of the Bel Messere; and his wife, having escaped, led them against the assassins, who had taken refuge in a neighbouring castle, stormed it, and put them all to the sword. Often are the ghosts of the Bel Messere and his seven children seen flitting by the pale moonlighton such a night as thisamong the woods and on the green hills of Venaco; and the shepherds on the mountains all around preserve the tradition of their sorrowful fate.

We reached Vivario before daylight, and leaving the voiture, scrambled up a lane, then some dark stairs, and found ourselves in the gaunt rooms of a rude locanda. The people were astir, expecting us, and the best sight was, not indeed a blazing fire of logsthough Vivario is close to the forest, such fires are not to be seen indoorsbut at least some lighted embers on the cooking-hearth, giving promise of a speedy cup of hot coffee, for we were very cold. The mountain air was keen, Vivario standing nearly 2000 feet above the level of the sea. The best news was that the mules for our journey were forthcoming. Meanwhile, we got our wash, and, it being too early to eat, had our déjeûner of bread and wine, grapes and ham, packed in a basket, to be eaten on the road.

We were objects of much curiosity. Whence did we come? where were we going? what was our business?were questions of course.

From London.

Sono chiesi in Londra?

Inglesisono tutti Christiani?

It may easily be imagined that the communal schools in Corsica give little instruction in ethnology; and even intelligent persons, like our former guide Antoine, appeared to doubt our right to be called Christians. That was often questioned, the people seeming little better informed than they were when Boswell travelled in Corsica, almost a century ago.

Inglesi, said a strong black fellow to him, sono barbare; non credono in Dio grande.

Excuse me, sir, replied Boswell; we do believe in God, and in Jesus Christ too.

Um, said he, e nel Papa? (and in the Pope?)

No.

E perche? (And why?)

This was a puzzling question under the circumstances, for there was a great audience listening to the controversy. So Boswell thought he would try a method of his own, and he very gravely replied:

Perche siamo troppo lontano. (Because we are too far off.) A very new argument against the universal infallibility of the Pope. It took, however; for his opponent mused awhile, and then said:

Troppo lontano! HaSicilia è tanto lontano che l'Inghilterra; e in Sicilia si credono nel Papa. (Too far off! why Sicily is as far off as England; yet in Sicily they believe in the Pope.)

Ah! said Boswell, Noi siamo dieci volte più lontano che la Sicilia. (We are ten times farther off than Sicily.)

Aha! said the questioner; and seemed quite satisfied. In this manner, concludes Boswell, I got off very well. I question much whether any of the learned reasonings of our Protestant divines would have had so good an effect.

Barbari, heretici, whatever we were, we parted on good terms with our kind hostess. Two mules were at the door, attended by a lad, who, at first sight, appeared too young for the long and rather fatiguing journey before us; but he had a most intelligent countenance, with hair, eyes, and features of the true Italian character, and he handled his mules well, and proved a most active and agreeable attendant.





CHAP. XXI.

Leave Vivario.Forest of Vizzavona.A roadside adventure.Bocagnono.Arrive late at Ajaccio.

It was broad daylight when we wound up a narrow path to the heights above the village of Vivario, thus saving an angle of the well-engineered high-road by which the voiture, preceding us, had gained the summit. Here we seated ourselves on a bank while my friend sketched. His view, reproduced in these pages, happily dispenses with the necessity of any lengthened description. Below, the eye rested on the tall and graceful campanile of the village church, with the houses radiating from it, half concealed by the groves of chestnut-trees embowering the valley. The slope beneath our point of view, as well as that on the left under the high-road, was covered by vineyards in terraces and gardens. The contrast of this verdure with the bare ridge beyond the fertile basin, still in deep shade, and the atmospheric effects of a soft and not overpowering light on the foreground, as well as of the vapour rising in the gorge, and hanging in aërial folds about the mountain tops, can only be imagined.

Smoke now began to curl up from the village hearths, and men, in rough jackets of black sheep's wool, with axes slung in their belts, are seen slowly winding up the steep to their work in the forest. The villages on the tops of the hills under the mountain ranges, of which we counted ten or more, reflect the early sunlight. A small fortified barrack, garrisoned by a party of gendarmes, held in check the banditti, whose strongest fastnesses were in this wild neighbourhood, and commands the high-road.

This we now follow; and the views from it are exceedingly picturesque, the engineers having obtained their level for it by pursuing the sinuosities of the defiles round Monte d'Oro, the rival monarch with Monte Rotondo of the Corsican Alps. Its snowy summit is continually in sight on our right, and we observe streaks of new-fallen snow for some distance beneath. On the left, we have the great forest of Vizzavona, which we shortly entered. Having before described a Corsican pine-forest of similar character, repetition would be wearisome. The trees here are of the same species, with some admixture of oak, many of them on a scale of equal or greater magnificence. The finest masts for the French navy have been drawn from this forest.

Heat and hunger now combined to make us look out for a rill of water at a convenient spot for taking our déjeûner, and a torrent crossing the road, with a rude bridge over it, we sat down on the low parapet, and, opening our baskets, the boy, Filippi, fetched water from the pure stream to cool and temper our wine. Bread, slices of ham, and grapes, were rapidly disappearing, when unexpected visitors appeared on the scene, in the shape of two country girls, travellers to Ajaccio like ourselves.

We had not been so much struck, to speak the truth, as some travellers seem to have been with the beauty and gracefulness of the Corsican women; but these really were two very pretty girls, of the age of fifteen or sixteen, brunettes, bright eyed, slightly formed, and with pleasing and expressive features. They were lightly clad, and one of them carried a small bundle. Accosted by Filippi, we learnt that they came from Corte, and were on their way to Ajaccio, in search of domestic service. Filippi appeared to know some of their family. To desire the boy to share with them the meal he was making at some little distance was only returning Corsican hospitality. The girls were shy at first, and it was only by degrees that we were able to establish a chat with them; and I was struck with the manner in which the eldest, taking a handful of new chestnuts from a bag, offered the contribution to our pic-nic. Poor girls! chestnuts and the running brooks were probably all they had to depend upon for refreshment during their journey. Happily, both were easily to be found.

Our road lying the same way, and the girls having walked from Vivario, while we had been riding, they were offered a ride on the mules, and, after some hesitation, the offer was accepted. With Filippi for their squire, the trio being about the same age, they were a merry party, making the glades of the old forest ring with their laughter and the sound of their young voices in the sweetest of tongues. The girls were in such glee, Filippi pressing the mules to a gallop, that though we enjoyed the fun, we really feared they would be thrown off. Our fears were groundless; riding astride, as is the fashion of the countrybut with all proprietythey had a firm seat, and laughed at our apprehensions.

With all this exuberance of spirits, there were the greatest modesty and simplicity in the demeanour of these poor girls. When they proceeded in a more sober mood, we joined in the conversation, asking questions about their prospects at Ajaccio, and the schooling they had received. They had no friends at Ajaccio; but the Mother of Mercy would guide and protect them!

The number of the girls receiving education at the communal and conventual schools in Corsica is very disproportionate to that of the boys. Marmocchi states the number of the former, in 1851 or 1852, as 2362, while the males receiving public instruction were 14,196. Of the girls, only 546 are educated in the communal schools, and 1816 in the establishments of the Surs de St. Joseph or the Filles de Marie. The proportion of boys frequenting the Corsican schools, relatively with those of France, is 137 to 100 in the winter, and 226 to 100 in the summer; but that of the girls is in the inverse, the relative number being much smaller in Corsica12 only to 100 in the winter, and 21 to 100 in the summer.

Our fellow-travellers were among the favoured number. Bridget, the eldest, opened her bundle, and took from among the folds of their slender stock of clothes two little books, which she showed us with modest pride. They contained catechisms, the Pater-noster, the Ave Maria, and a short litany to the Blessed Virgin. Poor girls! their trust was in Heaven! They had little else to trust in; but there was a Mother of Mercy to befriend her loving children. That was the most comfortable article in their creedideal, but very beautiful.

At the highest point of the Col of Vizzavona, nearly 4000 feet above the level of the sea, we find a loopholed barrack, surrounded by a ditch, where a small force of the gendarmerie is stationed to operate against the brigands. Standing among bare rocks, with the precipices of Monte d'Oro frowning above it, the position is most dismal. Fancy that bleak barrack in the long, dreary winter of such an elevation, when ice and snow reign over the whole plateau! And what must have been the severity of the service when the bleak forest was the hiding-place, and Bocagnono, just under, the head-quarters, of the most desperate banditti!



We still walked on, really preferring it, and glad not only to give the girls a lift, but to spare the mules, while carrying their light weight, for the hard service yet before them. After passing the col, we had a splendid view of Bocagnono and its hamlets, buried in trees, with bold mountains beyond. The pines now gave way to beech woods, and soon afterwards we reached the level of the chestnut. The fall of the ground became rapid, but, as usual in such cases, the face of the hill being traversed by stages of inclined planes, blasted by gunpowder in the rocks, the gradients of the road were easy.

The chestnut trees in the valley are of extraordinary size, and a rich contour of growth. Scattered capriciously among the groves are no less than ten hamlets, all attached to Bocagnono. It is a wild and romantic neighbourhood; and the principal village, though surrounded with verdure, has a most desolate aspect, the houses being built of unhewn stone, black with age, and the windows unglazed.

Walking down the long, straggling street, noting appearances, a little in advance of our singular cavalcade, we observed a very magnificent officer of police, with a cocked hat and feathers, and sword by his side, sitting on a bench, smoking his pipe. He scrutinised us closely as we passed, munching chestnuts, and carelessly throwing the shells not very far from his worshipful presence. Filippi soon following with the mules, he was stopped by this important personage, who questioned him sharply about us. Appearances were rather against us. The spruce gendarme might possibly not understandand it is often a puzzlehow gentlemen in light coats and stout shoes, bronzed, dusty, and travel-stained, could be walking through the country quite at their ease. Foreigners make themselves up for travelling in a very different style. Our juvenile suite also was somewhat singular, and, altogether, as I have said, circumstances were suspicious. We might be the last of the bandits, making their escape to the coast in disguise, with part of their little family. The orders to arrest such characters were very strict.

However, it is to be presumed that the official was satisfied with Filippi's report, and we escaped a detention which might have caused us loss of time and patience. Having cleared the town, we took counsel together. The day was wearing away, and we were still some thirty miles from Ajaccio. It was Saturday, and we wished to get to the end of our journey in order to enjoy a quiet Sunday. There was nothing on the road to tempt us to linger, and no probability of finding decent accommodations; while at Ajaccio, we should be in clover, and get a fresh outfit, our baggage having been forwarded there. On the other hand, it was a long pull, and Filippi remonstrated on behalf of the mules and himself. The first objection was overruled, and the other removed by our engaging to take the boy en croupe by turns. Our female attendants we dismissed with the means of procuring lodgings for the night; and we relieved Bridget of her burthen, desiring her to call for it at the hotel at Ajaccio.

Bocagnono stands in the gorge of a long valley, watered by the Gravone. This river falls into the sea a little south of Ajaccio, and the road, for the most part following its course, is generally easy. After leaving Bocagnono, the valley opened. We were among green hills, with the river flowing through a rich plain; the Alpine range, from which we had just descended, making a fine background to this pleasant landscape. Further on, some very picturesque villages, perched as usual on heights, increased its interest.

We kept the mules to as sharp a trot as was consistent with the work still before us. Unfortunately, in the jolting, poor Bridget's bundle got loose, and the contents being scattered on the road, the wardrobe of a Corsican girl was exposed to profane eyes, and it became incumbent on me, in discharge of my trust, to restore it to order with all possible neatness and security. Again we pricked on, and crossing the Gravone at the Ponte d'Usciano, the road began to ascend, carrying us for some miles over a rugged spur of the mountains. Here we found ourselves again among the shrubbery which forms so characteristic a feature in the landscape of these islands. Having passed the ruins of a house, the inmates of which, even to the infant in the cradle, had been butchered in one of the feuds so common in Corsica, we halted at a roadside albergo, near a baraque of the gendarmerie. Bread and grapes, with new wine, were spread for us under the shade of a tree, and we refreshed ourselves while our mules got their feed of barley.

We had now nearly a level road all the way to Ajaccio. The plain was well cultivated, and we remarked some irrigated fields of maize. Soon afterwards it became dark, and the mules being much distressed, we could only proceed at a slow pace. The fatigue of riding was much lessened by having an English saddle; still it was a hard day's travelling: but the air was deliciously balmy, and the glowworm's lamp and cricket's chirp helped to cheer the weariness of a road which seemed interminable. Presently, we met country people returning from the market at Ajaccio, lights were seen more frequently on the hills, and, at last, the lantern on the pier-heada welcome beaconcame in view. Half an hour afterwards, we dismounted at an hotel on the Corso.



CHAP. XXII.

Ajaccio.Collège-Fesch.Reminiscences of the Buonaparte Family.Excursion in the Gulf.Chapel of the Greeks.Evening Scenes.Council-General of the Department.Statistics.State of Agriculture in CorsicaHer Prospects.

Sunday morning we attended high-mass at the cathedral of Ajaccio, a building of the sixteenth century, in the Italian style, having a belfry and dome, with the interior richly decorated. The service was well performed, there being a fine-toned organ, and the music of the mass well selected. The congregation was numerous, the girls' school especially. I was struck with the pensive cast of features in many of the girls, so like the Madonnas of the Italian masters. There were formerly six dioceses in Corsica, Mariana being the principal; for many years they have been all administered by the Bishop of Ajaccio, who is at present a suffragan of the Archbishop of Aix, in France.

After service, we called on one of the professors of the Collège-Fesch, to whom we had letters of introduction. This college and the Séminaire are the best buildings in Ajaccio, both being finely situated fronting the sea. The Séminaire is confined exclusively to the education of theological students intended for the clerical orders. In the other, founded and endowed by Cardinal Fesch, the course of study is that generally pursued in the French colleges. The cardinal appears to have had more affection for his native place than any other member of the Bonaparte family, giving a proof of it in this noble foundation. He also bequeathed to his native place a large collection of pictures, few of them, however, of much merit. His remains are deposited with those of Madame Letizia, his sister, in a chapel of the cathedral of Ajaccio, having been brought from Rome; where I recollect seeing him in 1819,short and portly in person, with a mild and good-humoured expression of countenance. He had been a kind guardian of the young Bonapartes, and carefully administered the small property they inherited.

The Collège-Fesch is a large building, with spacious lecture-rooms, long and lofty corridors, and a yard for exercise; the windows of the front looking out on the Gulf of Ajaccio and the mountains beyond. The professor's apartments had all the air of the rooms of a college fellow and tutor in one of our universities, carpets et aliis mutandis; only they were more airy and spacious. There are fifteen professors, of whom the Abbate Porazzi is one of the most distinguished. We were indebted to him for many good offices during our stay at Ajaccio. The number of students at this time was 260. They appeared to be of all ranks and ages; some of them grown men.

Everything here has the southern character. We find rows of lemon-trees on the Corso; and the cactus, or Indian fig, flourishes in the environs,the bright oleander thriving in the open air. The heat was excessive, my thermometer standing at 80° at noon, in the shade of an airy room. From the Corso, a short street leads into the market-place, a square, bounded on one side by the port, and embellished by a fountain. During the last year it has been further ornamented by a statue of the first Napoleon, of white marble, standing on a granite pedestal, and facing the harbour. Concealed during the reigns of the restored Bourbons, its erection was a homage to the rising fortunes of the President of the French Republic. Ajaccio, being the modern capital of Corsica, the chef-lieu of the department, and seat of the préfetture and administration, is more French in habits and feeling than any other town in the island. But even here, I apprehend, there has never been much enthusiasm for the Bonapartes.[34] Among the native Corsicans, Pascal Paoli is the national hero.

We visited, of course, the house in which the first Napoleon was born, standing in a little solitary court dignified with the name of the Piazza Lucrezia, near the market-place. It has been often described. Uninhabited, and without a vestige of furniture, except some faded tapestry on the walls, the desolate and gloomy air of the birthplace of the great emperor struck me even more than the deserted apartments at Longwood, from which his spirit took its flight. There, sheaves of corn and implements of husbandry still gave signs of human life, singularly as they contrasted with the relics of imperial grandeur recently witnessed by the homely apartments. A man, born in the first year of the French Revolution, and who has followed the career of its child and champion with the feelings common to most Englishmen, can have no Napoleonic sympathies; yet, without forgetting the atrocities, the selfishness, and the littleness which stained and disfigured that career, it is impossible that such scenes could be contemplated by a thoughtful mind, not only without profound reflection on the vicissitudes of life, but without a full impression of the genius and force of character which lifted the Corsican adventurer to the dangerous height from whence he fell.

One afternoon we hired a boat in the harbour, and sailed down the Gulf of Ajaccio. This fine inlet, opening to the south-west, is from three to four leagues in length and breadth, and forms a basin of about twelve leagues in circumference, from the northern extremity, where the old city stood, to its outlet between the Isles Sanguinaires and the Capo di Moro, on the opposite coast. A range of mountains, considerably inferior in elevation to the central chain from which they ramify, rises almost from the shore, and stretches along the northern side of the gulf. The other coast is more indented, and swells into the ridges of the Bastelica, embracing the rich valley of Campo Loro (Campo del' Oro), washed by the Gravone. The Gulf of Ajaccio, like many others, has been compared to the Bay of Naples; but, I think, without much reason, except for the colouring lent by a brilliant and transparent atmosphere to both sea and land. In the case of Ajaccio, the effects are heightened by a still more southern climate, and the grander scale of the mountain scenery.



There were only a few small vessels, employed in the coasting trade, in the port. We rowed round the mole, under the frowning bastions of the citadel, a regular work covering a point stretching into the bay; and then hoisting sail, stood out into the gulf. The wind was too light to admit of our gaining its entrance; we sailed down it, however, for four or five miles in the mid-channel, the rocky islands at the northern entrance gradually opening; one crowned with the tower of a lighthouse, another with a village on its summit. The coast to our right was clothed with the deep verdure of the ever memorable Corsican shrubbery, breathing aromatic odours as we drifted along: otherwise, it appeared desolate; not a village appeared, and the barren and rugged mountain chain towered above.

Finding that we made but little progress, the boat was steered for a little reef of rocks on the northern shore, and landing, we dismissed the boatman, determining to walk back to Ajaccio along the water's edge. Meanwhile we sat down on the rocks while my companion sketched. Presently I strolled up to a little chapel, standing by the side of the road which winds round the gulf towards les Isles Sanguinaires. A simple and chaste style of Italian architecture distinguished the white façade, rising gracefully to a pediment, crowned with a cross; pilasters, supporting arches, divided the portico beneath into three compartments, the central one forming the entrance. The door was closed, but the interior was visible through a grille at the side. The nave was paved with blue and white squares, and marble steps led up to the sanctuary, forming, with two side chapels, a Greek cross. There was no ornament, no furniture, except two or three low chairs for kneeling. Under the portico was a marble tablet, inscribed in good Latin, to the pious memory of a Pozzo di Borgo[35], who restored the chapel in 1632. I read on another tablet:

Per gli Orfanelli dei Marinari Naufragati.

Under an arch supported by pillars of green marble, a lamp was feebly glimmering, fed perhaps by the offerings of loving mothers and fond wives who here offered their vows for the safe return of those dear to them.

The sun was setting behind the islands at the mouth of the gulf, perfect stillness reigned, broken only by a gentle ripple on the granite rocks forming ledges from the water's edge to the base of the chapel. Struck with its singular interest, and wishing to learn more about it, on returning to my friend, who was still sketching, I found him in conversation with some loungers from the town. They could only tell us that it was called The Chapel of the Greeks, and, laughing, turned on their heels when I pursued my inquiries. Did they suppose that we Northerns had no sentiment in our religion, or had they none themselves? I afterwards heard two traditions respecting the Chapel of the Greeks. One, that it was founded by the remains of a colony from the Morea, who, having been expelled with great loss from their settlement at Cargese, were granted an asylum here;the other, that the original building was erected, by Greek mariners, in acknowledgment of their escape from shipwreck on this coast.

It would be difficult, I imagine, to find a more favourable point of view, or a happier moment, than that of which my friend availed himself to make the sketch of Ajaccio, which has been selected for the frontispiece of this volume. The gulf was perfectly calm, and of the deepest green and azure, a slight ripple being only discernible where a boat lay in one of the long streams of light reflected from the mass of orange and golden clouds in which the sun was setting behind the islands; while, to the east, flakes of rosy hue floated in the mid-heaven. The sails of the feluccas, becalmed in the gulf, faintly caught the light, and it gleamed on the houses of Ajaccio, particularly those of the modern town, distinguished by its white walls and red roofs from the old buildings about the cathedral. Behind were sugar-loaf hills; and the mountain-sides across the gulf glowed with the richest purple. Then came gradual changes of colour, softer and deeper hues, till, at last, a steamy veil of mist from seaward stole over the gulf. A faint glimmer from the lighthouse at the entrance of the harbour was scarcely visible in the blaze left behind by the glorious sunset.

The lights began to twinkle from the windows of Ajaccio, and the cathedral bells tolling for the Ave Maria, stole on the ear across the gulf in the silence of the twilight hour. Reluctant to leave the scene, we lingered till it was shrouded from view, and an evening never to be forgotten closed in. Then we wound slowly towards the city along the shore, at the foot of hills laid out in vineyards hedged by the prickly cactus, or lightly sprinkled with myrtles and cystus, and all those odoriferous plants which now perfumed the balmy night air. Embowered in these, we had remarked some mortuary chapels, the burying-places of Ajaccian families. One of them, high up on the hill-side, was in the form of a Grecian temple; and we now passed another, standing among cypresses, close to the shore. Nearer the city, two stone pillars stand at the entrance of an avenue leading up to a dilapidated country-house, formerly the residence of Cardinal Fesch, and where Madame Bonaparte and her family generally spent the summer. Among the neglected shrubberies, and surrounded by the wild olive, the cactus, the clematis, and the almond, is a singular and isolated granite rock, called Napoleon's grotto, once his favourite retreat.

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 Corsoladies 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.

By the census of 1851, the population of Corsica was 236,251 souls, of whom 117,938 were males, and 118,313 females. All but 54 were Roman Catholics. There were no less than 32,364 proprietors of land. The day-labourers were 34,427; government officials, 1229; clergy, 955; regular troops, gendarmes, &c., 5000. The number of students in all the public colleges and schools was from 16,000 to 17,000, of which 15,000 were male, and only from 2000 to 3000 females. The proportion of males frequenting the schools is greater than in France, it being as 137 to 100 in the winter, and 226 to 100 in the summer; while that of the girls is the reverse, being as 12 to 100 in the winter, and 21 to 100 in the summer. This disproportion between male and female scholars in Corsica is very remarkable.

The superficies of the island is estimated at somewhat less than two millions and a quarter of English acres. Of this surface, only a six-hundredth part is, on an average, under cultivation, an area which, it is said, might be doubled. Vast portions of the soil belong to the communes, and measures are in contemplation for their improvement.

Wheat produces, on an average of years, an increase of nine times the seed sown; barley and oats, twelve or thirteen; maize, thirty-eight to forty; and potatoes, twenty.

The rate of daily wages for the year 1851 was fixed by the Council-General at 75 centimes for the towns of Ajaccio and Bastia, and 50 centimes for all the other communes.

Among the most important subjects brought to notice by the procès-verbal of 1851 is the state of agriculture in the island; on which the Préfet finds little to congratulate the Council-General except an increase in the cultivation of lucerne and in the plantations of mulberry-trees. The obstacles to its progress are found in the insecurity of life, the want of inclosures, and the unbounded rights of common enjoyed by the shepherds; in the richest plains being uninhabited, and their distance from the villages; in the pestilential air of these plains, and the want of roads.A stranger will be disposed to add to this list the indolence of the natives. So far as the obstacles to improvement can be surmounted by judicious legislation and encouragement, the procès-verbals of the Council-General exhibit enlightened ideas far in advance of the opinions and habits of the people; and there is much good sense and right feeling in the observation with which the Prèfet, in one of his addresses, concludes his statement of the position of affairs:

Si la Corse, he says, devait passer subitement à l'état des civilisations avancées, elle courait risque de perdre dans cette transformation (et ce serait à jamais deplorable) tout ce qu'il y a de primitif, de généreux, d'énergetique dans ses murs séculaires. Je n'en citerai qu'un exemple. Le mouvement civilisateur trouve, à certains égards, résistance dans la force des sentiments de famille, dans la cohésion des membres qui la composent. Et, cependant, qui d'entre vous consentirait à acheter les progrès de la civilisation au prix du rélâchement de ces liens sacrés qui sont la clef de voûte de toute société organisée?

Delivered from the scourge of banditisme and the vendetta by severe measures, supposed to be strongly opposed to the popular instinct, and with hopes held out of such further improvement in civilisation as the progress of ideas will admit, Corsica may, perhaps, have no reason to regret that she failed in her long struggles for national independence. But France will not have performed her duty to this outlying department of the empire till she promotes the manufactures and commerce of the island. It is a part of the protective system to which she clings to discourage all direct foreign trade, just as England formerly engrossed the commerce of her colonies. The result is that the poor Corsicans, compelled to purchase the commodities they requiremanufactured goods, colonial produce, and even corn and cattlein the French market, buy at enormously high prices. The balance of trade is much against them, their annual exports to France being only a million and a half of francs, while they import from thence articles of the value of three millions. The present Emperor of France is understood to entertain enlightened views on the subject of free trade; and it is to be hoped that, when he is able to carry them out, Corsica will share in the benefits of an unrestricted commerce.



CHAP. XXIII.

Leave Ajaccio.Neighbourhood of Olmeto.Sollacaró.James Boswell's Residence there.Scene in the Corsican Brothers laid thereQuarrel of the Vincenti and Grimaldi.Road to Sartene.Corsican Marbles.Arrive at Bonifacio.

We were quite as well served, and the accommodations were as good, at Ajaccio as in any provincial city of France. They gave us a delicate white wine made in the neighbourhood, an agreeable beverage, which, we thought, resembled Chablais; and a confiture of cherries preserved in jelly, which was exquisite. I had told the story of our adventure with the poor girls from Corte to the mistress of the house, and, on Bridget's appearing the day after our arrival to claim her wardrobe, she informed me, with great joy, that our good hostess had taken her into her service.

On leaving Ajaccio, Sartene was our next point. The road crosses the Gravone and the Prunelle, flowing into the gulf through fertile valleys, and then winds through a wild and mountainous country, in which Cauro is the only village, till, surmounting the Col San Georgio, 2000 feet above the level of the sea, it descends into a rich plain, watered by the Taravo. In its upper course its branches water two romantic valleys, which formed the ancient fiefs of Ornano and Istria, the seats of powerful lords in the old times. Picturesque scenery, ruins of castles, and mediæval tales lend a charm to this region, in which we would gladly have wandered for some days, but that Sardinia was before us.

There are few finer spots in the island than the paese of Olmeto, the principal village being surrounded by mountains, with a plain below, extending to the deep inlet of the Mediterranean, called the Gulf of Valinco, and rich in corn-lands, olive, and fruit trees. At Olmeto we were served with a dish of magnificent apples, some of them said to weigh two pounds. On the Monte Buturetto, 3000 feet high, are seen the ruins of the stronghold of Arrigo della Rocca; and, further on, near Sollacaró, another almost inaccessible summit was crowned by a castle, built by his nephew, Vincentello d'Istriaboth famed in Corsican story.

It was at Sollacaró, standing at the foot of this hill, that our countryman, Boswell, first presented himself to Pascal Paoli, in a house of the Colonna's, with letters of introduction from the Count de Rivarola and Rousseau. Boswell remained some time with Paoli, who was then keeping a sort of court at Sollacaró, and admitted him to the most familiar intercourse. His conversations with the illustrious Corsican, jotted down in his own peculiar style, form the most interesting part of the account of his tour, published after his return to England. From my first setting out on this tour, he states, I wrote down every night what I had observed during the day. Of these particulars the most valuable to my readers, as well as to myself, must surely be the memoirs and remarkable sayings of Pascal Paoli, which I am proud to record.[37]

Boswell was treated with much distinction, and appears to have been flattered with the character, which ignorance or policy attributed to him, of being Il Ambasciadore Inglese. In the morning, he says, I had my chocolate served up on a silver salver, adorned with the arms of Corsica. I dined and supped constantly with the general. I was visited by all the nobility; and when I chose to make a little tour, I was attended by a party of guards. One day, when I rode out, I was mounted on Paoli's own horse, with rich furniture of crimson velvet and broad gold lace, and had my guards marching along with me. His vanity so flattered, and with what he calls Attic evenings, noctes, cnæque Deûm, giving scope to his ruling passion, James Boswell must have been in the seventh heaven while Paoli's guest at Sollacaró.

But the most amusing part of the affair is the efforts he made to ingratiate himself with the lower classes of the Corsicans, his admiration of whom is sometimes chequered by a wholesome fear of their wild instincts. I got a Corsican dress made, he says, in which I walked about with an air of true satisfaction. The general did me the honour to present me with his own pistols, made in the island, all of Corsican wood and iron, and of excellent workmanship. I had every other accoutrement.[38] The peasants and soldiers became quite free and easy with me. One day, they would needs hear me play upon my German flute. I gave them one or two Italian airs, and then some of our beautiful old Scotch tunesGilderoy, The Lass of Patie's Mill, Corn-riggs are bonny. The pathetic simplicity and pastoral gaiety of the Scotch music will always please those who have the genuine feelings of nature. The Corsicans were charmed with the specimens I gave them.

My good friends insisted also on having an English song from me. I endeavoured to please them in this, too, and was very lucky in what occurred to me. I sung to them Hearts of oak are our ships; hearts of oak are our men. I translated it into Italian for them; and never did I see men so delighted with a song as the Corsicans were with Hearts of Oak. Cuore di querco, cried they, bravo Inglese! It was quite a joyous riot.

Boswell's correspondence during this tour is also characteristic. He informs us that he walked one day to Corte, from the convent where he lodged, purposely to write a letter to Mr. Samuel Johnson.I told my revered friend, that from a kind of superstition, agreeable in a certain degree to him as well as to myself, I had, during my travels, written to him from LOCA SOLEMNIA, places in some measure sacred. That, as I had written to him from the tomb of Melancthon, sacred to learning and piety, I now wrote to him from the palace of Pascal Paoli, sacred to wisdom and liberty; knowing that, however his political principles may have been represented, he had always a generous zeal for the common rights of humanity.

Mr. Johnson was pleased with what I wrote here; for I received, at Paris, an answer from him, which I keep as a valuable charter. When you return, you will return to an unaltered and, I hope, unalterable friend. All that you have to fear from me is the vexation of disappointing me. No man loves to frustrate expectations which have been formed in his favour, and the pleasure which I promise myself from your journals and remarks is so great, that perhaps no degree of attention or discernment will be able to afford it. Come home, however, and take your chance. I long to see you and to hear you; and hope that we shall not be so long separated again. Come home, and expect such a welcome as is due to him whom a wise and noble curiosity has led where, perhaps, no native of this country ever was before.[39]

We have a certain sympathy for Boswell. He was the first Englishman on record who penetrated into Corsica, and none but ourselves, as far as we have any account, have followed his steps for nearly a century. Not to weary the reader, we have done him injustice in only making extracts from his work betraying the weak points of his character; for his account of Corsica is valuable for its research, its descriptions, and its history of the times. His memorabilia of Pascal Paoli supply ample materials for any modern Plutarch who would contrast his character with that of his rival countryman, Napoleon Bonaparte. Commencing their political career in unison, widely as it diverged, both ended their lives in exile on British soil. Though Paoli's sphere was narrow, so was that of some of the greatest men in Grecian history; and, like theirs, it had far extended relations. The eyes of Europe were upon him; Corsica was then its battle-field, and the principles of his conduct and administration are of universal application.

But Sollacaró may have more interest for the public of the present day from its connection with a romance of Alexandre Dumas, and the play founded upon it, than from Paoli's having held court, or Boswell's visit to him, there. We have traced the wizard's footsteps, in one of his works of genius, at the Château d'If and Monte Cristo[40], we meet them again in the wilds of Corsica. Few of my readers can follow us there; but let them go to the Princess's when The Corsican Brothers is performed, and they will realise much that we have told them of the Corsican temperament and Corsican life. How true to nature is the reply of Fabian, in the first act, to the suggestion of his friend, Then you will never leave the village of Sollacaró?It seems strange to you that a man should cling to such a miserable country as Corsica; but what else can you expect? I am one of those plants that will only live in the open air. I must breathe an atmosphere impregnated with the life-giving emanations of the mountains and the sharp breezes of the sea. I must have my torrents to cross, my rocks to climb, my forests to explore. I must have my carbine, room, independence, and liberty. If I were transported into a city, methinks I should be stifled, as if I were in a prison.

The scene of the first act is laid in an old mansion of the Colonna's at Sollacaró, perhaps that in which Boswell lodged. The action turns upon an antient feud between the Orlandi and Colonne, which is with difficulty extinguished by the intervention of Fabian, one of the Corsican brothers. A short dialogue tells the story:

FABIAN. You come among us to witness a vendetta; well! you will behold something much more rareyou will be present at a reconciliation.

ALFRED. A reconciliation?

FAB. Which will be no easy matter, I assure you, considering the point to which things are come.

ALF. And from what did this great quarrel originate, which, thanks to you, is on the eve of being extinguished?

FAB. Why, I confess I feel some difficulty in telling you that. The first cause was

ALF. Was what?

FAB. The first cause was a hen.

ALF. (astonished) A hen!

FAB. Yes. About ten years ago, a hen escaped from the poultry-yard of the Orlandi, and took refuge in that of one of the Colonne. The Orlandi claimed the hen. The Colonne maintained it was theirs. In the heat of the discussion, an Orlando was imprudent enough to threaten that he would summon the Colonne before the Juge de Paix, and put them on their oath. At this menace, an old woman of the Colonna family, who held the hen in her hand, twisted its neck, and threw it in the face of the mother of Orlando. There, said she, if the hen be thine, eat it! Upon this, an Orlando picked up the hen by the claws, and raised his hand, with the hen in it, to strike her who had thrown it in the face of his mother; but at the moment he lifted his hand, a Colonna, who unfortunately had his loaded carbine with him, without hesitation, fired, and shot him in the breast, and killed him.

ALF. Good heavens! And how many lives has this ridiculous squabble cost?[41]

FAB. There have been nine persons killed and five wounded.

ALF. What! and all for a miserable hen?

FAB. Yes.

ALF. And it is, doubtless, in compliance with the prayers of one of these two families that you have interfered to terminate this quarrel?

FAB. Oh! not at all. They would have exterminated one another to the very last man rather than have made a single step towards each other. No, no; it is at the entreaty of my brother. ...

The action of this scene consists in the formal but unwilling reconciliation of the two clans, represented by their chiefs, in the presence of a juge de paix; in token of which a hen was to be presented by the Orlando to the Colonna. The situation affords scope for ludicrous disputes whether it should be a white hen or a black onedead or alivewhich should hold out his hand first, and so on; mixed with the more serious question, whether they met on equal terms, only four Orlandi having been slain against five Colonne, but four Orlandi wounded to one Colonnathe Colonne counting the wounded for nothing, if they did not die of their wounds.