firing; but, it was remarked, that in taking aim, he levelled the barrel
higher than the mark at the foot of the tower. A moment of solemn
silence was followed by a flash, a sharp crack,—and the whizzing bullet
struck the skull in the cage. The shock brought both to the ground, and,
at the same instant, the young man, quick as thought, leaped over the
palisades, and, gathering up the fragments of skull, quickly
disappeared. The spectators of this strange scene asked each other what
it meant; and, in the midst of the hubbub, Joachimo, the old peasant who
had invited Antonio to try his skill in the feat of arms, raised his
voice to satisfy their curiosity.
“My children,” he said, “Corsican blood has not degenerated; of this you
have witnessed a striking proof in the act of Antonio. The skull, which
hung on the tower wall, was that of a man unjustly condemned to death,
of a man whose only crime was, his having taken vengeance with his own
hand for the insult offered his wife by an inhabitant of the continent.
The skull was that of Antonio's father; and a son, a true Corsican,
could not submit to having his father's remains dishonoured. This day he
has wiped out the ignominy,—henceforth Antonio is an outlaw, proscribed
by the men of law, by the French; but we Corsicans shall ever esteem him
a man of honour and of courage.”
The crowd then dispersed, full of admiration for the brave Antonio, and
the event of the morning became the theme of the evening's conversation
in all the families of the neighbourhood.
Meanwhile Antonio, having gained the forest, rapidly threaded its
tangled paths for nearly an hour. He then stopped in one of its deepest
recesses, and, having keenly reconnoitred every avenue of approach,
threw himself weary at the foot of a tree, and opening the handkerchief
in which he had wrapped his father's skull, gave vent to a flood of
tears.
“Oh, my father!” he said, “my father! why could I not take vengeance on
the authors of your death? why could I not avenge myself on the
descendants of the base Frenchman who insulted my mother? why could I
not wash out, in their blood, the shame that has fallen on our family,
and embittered our existence?”
At the thought of vengeance the eyes of the young islander flashed fire,
his tears dried up, and that heart, just now so open to tender emotions,
would have prompted him to plunge his dagger in the bosom of those who
were the cause of his misery.
Again, the fit changed; for, in the midst of this storm of passion, a
name quivered on his lips, like the star seen in the drifting clouds
when the tempest is raging.
“Madaléna!” he cried, “all is now finished between us;—Antonio is a
bandit.”
Then, exercising a strong power over himself, he passed his hand over
his forehead, as if to drive evil thoughts from his brain, and,
unsheathing his strong dagger, dug a hole at the foot of the oak, in
which he deposited his precious burthen. A cross, carved by his dagger
on the trunk of the tree, served for a memorial of his father's
fate:—ah! what thoughts, what sorrows, did that cross recall to his
mind!—and, after a short prayer, he hastened from the spot which had
witnessed his last act of filial duty.
Wretched Antonio! a solitary outcast, abandoned by all, what refuge was
left for you but the forest and the _máquis_?—what protector, but your
good rifle—what hope, but in the grave! Nay, another passion, another
image, was deeply graven on his heart! Love—that divine passion, which
ennobles a man, which gives him courage, which fills him with
heroism—afforded him strength to survive so many calamities.
Some days after these occurrences, a young maiden crept stealthily at
early dawn from among the houses in the village of Allari, fifteen
leagues distant from Bastia, and gained unseen the _purlieus_ of the
neighbouring wood before any of the villagers were abroad. The maiden's
age was about eighteen years; her step was light, her form slender and
graceful; health sparkled in her dark eyes; her enterprise lent a
ruddier hue to her olive skin, and a profusion of raven-black tresses
floated on her shoulders, as she brushed through the evergreen shrubbery
on the verge of the wood, where, concealed in the hollow of an aged
chestnut tree, a young man had been waiting her arrival for upwards of
an hour. This young man was Antonio, the maiden Madaléna.
On perceiving her approach, Antonio hastened to quit his hiding place,
and came to meet her.
“How kind you are, Madaléna,” he said: “you, so rich, so young, so
beautiful—to expose yourself for me to the cold morning air; to brave,
perhaps, the anger of your parents, for one of whom you know so little.
“It is true that you told me once that you loved me; and love knows no
obstacles, and makes nothing of distances. But I must not abuse your
confidence. Madaléna, my bosom labours with a secret which I have too
long preserved. I have done wrong; I have deceived you. I feared, I
dreaded, that in disclosing it to you, I should forfeit your love, your
esteem; that you would avoid me as the world does a man to whom society
gives an ill name. Yes, Madaléna, you have to learn—Madaléna, hitherto I
have not had the courage to tell it to you—learn that I am a....”
Antonio shrunk from giving utterance to a word which would probably
crush all his hopes, and break the last tie which held him to the world.
So, changing his purpose, he continued in an altered tone:—
“Why should I embitter the moments which ought to be given to love? Is
it not true, Madaléna, that you love me for myself? Ah! tell me that you
love me, for there is great need that I should hear it from your own
lips, and without this love I should be wretched indeed. Tell me that
you do not want to know my past; that you love me because our hearts
understand each other; because our two souls, breathed into us by the
Author of our existence, were formed to love each other for ever.”
Madaléna, perceiving the feebleness of her lover, took his hand, and
fixing on him an eager gaze, made him sit by her side. On touching that
much-loved hand, the young man started, and a sudden shivering ran
through his veins. The maiden perceived it, and a gleam of
satisfaction, and almost coquetry, sparkled in her eyes. Poor woman's
heart! Even in the most solemn moments she is always a coquette. Such is
her nature.
“Antonio,” she said, “you vow that you love me; why then hesitate to
confide to me your secrets, your sorrows? Am I not some day to be your
wife? I have sworn it before God and my mother, and I shall be. Why then
do you defer telling me the cause of your long sufferings. I have long
perceived that your heart is oppressed by some secret thought. Can it be
that you are in love with another, Antonio? Tell me if it is so; you
shall have my forgiveness, and I will say to the woman who is the choice
of your heart, ‘Love him, for he is worthy of it!’ And if it were
required that I should shed my blood for your happiness, I would not
hesitate a single moment to make the sacrifice.”
“Oh no, no, Madaléna, think not so! Do you suppose me capable of
betraying you, of casting you off? I, who love you with a perfect love,
a love as pure as that which makes the bliss of angels,—with which a
child loves its mother? For one fond look from you I would brave the
fury of men—of men and the elements. Drive this suspicion from your
heart, and God grant that, when you have learnt my secret, you may
continue to entertain the same sentiments towards me.”
Thus speaking, Antonio drew near to the maiden, and, hiding his face in
her hands, whispered in her ear:—
“Madaléna, Madaléna, I am—a bandit.”
The young girl shrieked with terror, and fainted in his arms. Antonio
laid her on the grass, and, having sprinkled her face with the fresh
morning dew, knelt by her side. Presently, Madaléna opened her eyes, and
seeing Antonio kneeling, and still holding her hand, roused herself
with a sudden effort, and, casting on him a look of mingled horror and
scorn, said to him,—
“Leave me, Antonio, you make me shudder, your hands are stained with the
blood of the innocent.”
Antonio, crazed with love, crawled to her feet and wept; but having,
after much difficulty, prevailed with her to hear him, he related to her
the story of the skull, the only crime for which he was a bandit. After
this explanation, Madaléna seemed to be reassured, and her lover awaited
his final sentence from her lips in breathless suspense. The maiden's
heart was touched by his tale, and observing him with an air of less
severity, she said:—
“I am satisfied that you speak the truth; but I have a mother and
father, and I think, that after this disclosure, I could never become
your wife without abandoning them for ever. At this moment I am too much
agitated to come to any decision; return to morrow, and you shall know
my final resolve. Meanwhile, rest assured that I pity and love you
still, considering you more unfortunate than guilty, and that I will
either be your wife, or the wife of no other man.”
Thus saying, she hastened from the spot.
Antonio saw her depart without having the courage to address to her
another word. That man so brave, who knew no fear, recoiled from no
danger, wept like a child. A sad presentiment told him that it was his
last meeting with Madaléna, though her concluding promise tended in some
degree to reassure him.
Madaléna shut herself up in her chamber and shed floods of tears—tears
not of love, but of shame. For her—the daughter of a wealthy citizen of
Ajaccio, brought up in the manners, and tinctured with the prejudices
of the continent, who knew nothing of the world but its empty phantoms,
nor of love but its coquetry—it was disgrace to love and be loved by the
son of a bandit, by one who was himself a bandit.
From that day Madaléna never returned to the wood. Every morning the
unhappy Antonio retraced his steps to the place of meeting, but only to
have his hopes crushed. He was forgotten, perhaps scorned. Love, the
sentiment of the heart, had yielded to the influence of the frivolous
ideas of society, the conventional maxims of the world. This young
maiden had not the courage to affirm in the face of all, “I love
Antonio, because he is not guilty of any crime; I love him because he
has avenged his father, because he is a true son of Corsica.” But she
had not the spirit, the strength of mind, to say this. The Corsican
blood had degenerated in her veins, or she would have felt that it was
no crime for Antonio to achieve the removal from public view of the
horrid spectacle which was a continual witness of shame and
ignominy,—exposed by a relic of barbarism, called law, to the gaze and
scorn of all who passed along the streets,—that no stain rested on the
memory of Antonio's father, because, as a husband and a father, he had
avenged the honour of his wife and his children.
A year after these events, the whole population of the village of Allari
was again astir. Its only bell clanged incessantly, and gay troops of
both sexes, in holiday dress, flocked through the streets in the
direction of the _Mairie_. It was a bright morning of the month of
April; joy floated in the air, and pleasure sparkled in every eye.
Presently, a nuptial procession was formed, and took its way towards
the church. All eyes rested on the bride and bridegroom; they did not
wear the Corsican dress, but adopted French fashions. Everything about
them betokened wealth, and an affectation of continental manners.
As soon as the procession had entered the church, the streets became
deserted; but a young man, who from an early hour had concealed himself
in the cemetery, now glided round the church, casting anxious glances on
every side, as if apprehensive of being discovered. His clothes, torn to
tatters, his unshorn beard and long, dishevelled, hair, blood-shot eyes,
and haggard countenance, betokened the extremity of anguish and want.
His feet were naked, and he carried in his hand a short rifle.
Arrived at the church door, and having glanced within, he paused for a
moment, leaning against the pillar. The nuptial ceremony had reached the
point where the minister of God, after pronouncing the mystic words,
demands of the betrothed their assent to the marriage union; when, just
as the bride was in the act of uttering the word which binds for ever
the destinies of both, the barrel of the rifle, held by the man
stationed at the door, was levelled, and the _fiancée_ fell, pierced in
the breast with a mortal wound. The man, who fired, threw down his
rifle, and, dashing into the church like one demented, took the dying
woman in his arms, and cried,—
“Madaléna, you broke your troth to me; you rendered me desperate; we die
together!”
And, unsheathing his dagger, he plunged it several times into his
breast, falling on the dying woman, who opened her eyes, and,
recognising her lover, expired with the name of “Antonio” on her lips.
Her betrothed was conveyed away by his relations, and the recollection
of this terrible scene disturbed for a long while the tranquillity of
the village. The church in which it took place was, after the
catastrophe, stripped of all its sacred ornaments, and left to decay.
Its ruins may still be seen on a point of rising ground, and, if an
inquiring traveller takes a turn behind the church, he will find in the
cemetery, on the spot where Antonio was concealed, a grave-stone
inscribed with the names of Madaléna and Antonio, surmounted by a rude
representation of a rifle and a dagger.
CHAP. XV.
_Morosaglia, Seat of the Paolis.—Higher Valley of the
Golo.—Orography of Corsica.—Its Geology._
On crossing to the right bank of the Golo at _Ponte Nuovo_, we enter the
canton of Morosaglia, the former _piève_ of Rostino, and the home of the
Paoli family. The canton takes its present name from a Franciscan
convent, still standing, and part of it used as an elementary school,
founded by the will of Pascal Paoli.
It is about two hours' walk from Ponte Nuovo to the hamlet in which the
Paolis were born. The house is one of those gaunt, misshapen, rude
structures, built of rough stones, and blackened by age, which one sees
everywhere in the mountain villages; without even glass to the windows.
Standing on the craggy summit of an insulated rock, the access to it is
by a rough wooden staircase. Here Pascal Paoli resided, as a simple
citizen, after the manner of his fathers, polished as his manners were,
and highly as he was accomplished, after he had attained to almost
sovereign power. The rooms are so small that he transacted public
business in the neighbouring convent of Morosaglia.
There also his brother, Clemente Paoli, had a cell to which he often
retired. His was a singular character. Of a saturnine cast of
disposition, he seldom spoke to those by whom he was surrounded; a great
part of his time was spent in religious observances, and in the practice
of the most rigid austerities. In short, he was the monk when at home,
and the most intrepid warrior when engaged with the enemy of his
country. The sanctity of his private life procured him singular
veneration, and his presence in battle produced a wonderful effect on
the patriots. Even when pulling the trigger to destroy his enemy, he is
said to have prayed for the soul of his falling antagonist.[20] After
the fatal field of Ponte Nuovo, declining to follow his brother to
England, he spent twenty years in prayer and penance in the Benedictine
Abbey of Vallombrosa, that shady and sequestered retreat in the heart of
the Apennines, returning to his native Corsica only to die. Such was
Clemente Paoli. Of his brother Pasquale, a fitting place for some more
extended notice will be found at Corte, the seat of his island throne.
The country on the right bank of the river is rugged; rude _paése_ crown
the heights, and the hollows are shrouded in magnificent chestnut woods.
The mountains seen from beyond Bigorno shut in the valley of the Golo so
closely in some places, that it is a mere defile giving passage to the
river and the road. The river is a torrent, and the valley is ascended
at a sharp angle. At _Ponte à la Leccia_, we recrossed to the left bank
of the river; the valley expanded, and there was much cultivated land,
though the soil was poor. Rounded hills in the foreground were backed by
a serrated range of mountains, Monte Rotondo being just visible.
Approaching now, through the high valleys, the central region of the
mountain system of Corsica, this may be a proper place for a brief
survey of the main features in its orography and geological structure.
We have hitherto spoken of a central chain and its ramifications in a
loose manner; but it would be desirable to convey more precise ideas of
the structure of this mountain island; and, as the system happens to be
very simple and intelligible, it affords an example, on a small scale,
which may give the unscientific reader a general idea of the nature of
grander operations. Having traversed the island from north to south, and
from east to west, not without an eye to its general structure and
composition, though making no pretensions to exact scientific knowledge,
I may be able to furnish a not unfaithful digest of the observations of
the foreign geologists _Elie de Beaumont_, _Raynaud_, _Gueymard_ and
others, as I find them quoted in Marmocchi's work.
OROGRAPHY OF CORSICA.
At first sight, Corsica presents the aspect of a chaos of mountains
piled one on another, with their escarped sides rising from the sea to
great elevations; but on a closer examination, and with the assistance
of an accurate map, it is soon perceived that these mountains,
apparently heaped up in wild confusion, are distinctly arranged in three
principal directions,—from north-east to south-west, from north-west to
south-east, and from north to south.
The point which forms the main link of the whole system lies high, near
the snowy sources of the Golo. This elevated part of the island, with
the districts immediately surrounding it,—an Alpine and forest region
in which the principal rivers and streams take their rise,—this region
so sublime in its vast solitudes, so poetic, so savagely wild, so
picturesque,—may be called the Switzerland of Corsica.
From this central link two great chains, forming, so to speak, the
backbone of the island, diverge in opposite directions. One section,
tending to the south-east, traverses the centre of the island, where the
Monte Rotondo and Monte d'Oro lift to the skies their ever snowy peaks,
and terminates at the Monte Incudine. This high chain throws out its
longest branches to the south-west, each of them forming at its
extremity a lofty promontory washed by the Mediterranean, and the
successive ridges inclosing delightful and fertile valleys.
The other section of the central chain describes a curved line to the
north-north-east, as far as Monte Grosso; and, over the Bevinco, links
itself with the system of Capo Corso by the offsets of Monte Antonio and
San Leonardo, by which latter _col_ we crossed the ridge on the evening
of our landing in Corsica. The spurs from this second chain take, in
general, a north-west direction towards the sea. Less considerable than
those connected with the first, they inclose narrower valleys, and form
promontories less _saillants_, and of inferior elevation on the western
coast.
The mountains of Capo Corso, extending in a chain nearly north and
south, at a short distance from the east coast, form the third
orographic division of the island; this chain, as observed in a former
chapter, being cut by deep valleys of short extent, the channels of
torrents discharging themselves into the Tuscan Sea.
Between this long chain, extending from Monte Antonio to Monte
Incudine, and the tortuous ranges detached obliquely from it, lies a
central area equal in surface to a fifth part of the whole island of
which it forms the heart—the interior. The general inclination of this
area, with the openings of the valleys, tends to the east. It does not
form one single bason, but, intersected as it is in various directions
by secondary ranges, and by mountains linking the principal chain, its
_contour_ is composed of a series of deep and generally narrow valleys,
rising one above the other. The grandest as well as the most elevated of
these basons is that of the _Niolo_, the citadel of Corsica.
These lofty mountain chains, with the numerous ramifications detached
from them, and extending in all directions, render the communications
between one place and another, between the coasts on opposite sides of
the island, extremely difficult. The passage from the western to the
eastern shore can only be effected by climbing to great elevations,
through long and narrow gorges, through deep ravines of savage aspect,
and covered with dense forests. The Corsicans give a lively idea of some
of these toilsome paths by calling them _scale_,—ladders,
staircases;—and such, indeed, they are, the steps, often prolonged for
miles, being partly the work of Nature, partly cut in the rock by the
hand of man.
GEOLOGY OF CORSICA.
In the present state of science there can be no difficulty in ascribing
the origin of the three great lines of the Corsican mountains, to which
all the others are subordinate, to three vast upheavings of the soil in
the direction they take. The order of these elevations above the
surface of the ancient sea thrice repeated in the long series of past
ages, giving the first existence to the island, and by successive
conglomerations shaping its present bold and irregular profile, may be
also distinctly traced.
The masses first raised to the surface of the sea, supposed to be of
igneous origin, lifted by the intense action of fire or subterranean
heat from vast depths, and called by English geologists “Plutonic
rocks,” as differing from “Volcanic,”—these masses constitute nearly the
whole south-western coast of Corsica, one half of the whole island.
If an ideal line be drawn diagonally from a point so far north-west as
Cape _Revellata_, near Calvi, to the point of _Araso_, far down the
south-east coast near Porto Vecchio, this primary eruption may be traced
in the several ranges, perpendicular to the ideal line and parallel with
each other, which descending to the sea in the direction of from
north-east to south-west, terminate in the principal promontories on the
western coast, and form the numerous valleys which appear in succession
from the Straits of Bonifacio to the Gulf of Porto.
Thus at the earliest epoch the principal axis of the island had its
direction from the north-west to the south-east. The Capo Corso of those
times lifted its head above the Sea of Calvi, and who can say how far
the island extended at the opposite extremity? All we know is, that the
group of rocky islets called the _Isole Cerbicale_, south-west of Porto
Vecchio, with the _Isola du Cavallo_, and that _Di Lavazzi_ off the
coast at Bonifacio; and again, the islets _Die Razzoli_ and _Budelli_ on
the opposite side of the Straits, with the larger islands of _La
Madaléna_ and _Caprera_, all of a similar formation with the primary
Corsican range,—like detached fragments of some vast ruined
structure,—appear to form the links of a chain which united Corsica with
the mountain system of the north-eastern portion of the island of
Sardinia.
These primitive masses are almost entirely granitic; and thus, at the
epoch of its first emergence from the waters of the Mediterranean, no
spark of animal or vegetable life existed in the new island.
So also one half of the masses raised by the _second_ upheaval, having
the same general direction, are granitic. But, as we advance towards the
north-east, the granites insensibly resolve themselves into _ophiolitic_
rocks,—a name given by French geologists to certain volcanic eruptions
of the cretaceous era,—which are also found in the Morea.[21] There are
but few traces remaining of this second upheaval, which evidently laid
in ruins great part of the northern extremity of the former one, cutting
it at right angles to the east of the Gulf of Porto. This line, ranging
from the south-west to the north-east into the heart of the _Nebbio_, is
broken up and destroyed through nearly its whole length.