and even Paoli's just and popular administration could not escape the
rivalry of Emanuel Matra, a man of ancient family and great power, who
became jealous of Paoli's pre-eminence. All attempts at conciliation on
the part of Paoli proving useless, Matra and his adherents rose in arms,
and, calling the Genoese to their aid, it was only after a long and
bloody struggle, and some sharp defeats, that Paoli and the Nationals
were able to crush the insurrection; Matra falling, after fighting
desperately, in the battle which terminated the war.
Pascal Paoli, being now firmly seated in power, and the island, settled
under a regular form of government, growing in strength, the Genoese
found themselves unequal to cope with a brave and united people. After
some further ineffectual attempts, they once more applied to France for
succour, and engaged her to occupy the strong places in the island, as
she had already done from 1737 to 1741. French troops accordingly,
landing in Corsica, established a footing which has never been
relinquished, except during the short period of English occupation. But
by the Treaty of Compiegne, signed before the expedition sailed (1764),
the French limited their support of the Genoese to a term of four years.
During that period they maintained a strict neutrality towards the
Corsican Nationals, confining themselves to the limits of their
occupation. Their generals maintained harmonious relations with Pascal
Paoli, and, the Genoese power in the island having shrunk to nothing,
the patriots had the entire possession of the country, except the
fortified places, and the Commonwealth flourished under the firm and
active administration of its wise chief. It was at this time that James
Boswell visited the island. Residing some time with General Paoli, and
admitted to familiar intercourse with him, he collected the materials
from which he afterwards compiled “An Account of Corsica, and Memoirs of
Pascal Paoli,” published in London in 1767,—a work, the details of which
are only equalled by his _Johnsoniana_ for their minute and vivid
portraiture of his hero's life, opinions, character, and habits. The
“Account of Corsica” has been the standard, indeed the only English,
work relating to that island from that day to the present.
The time fixed by the Treaty of Compiegne for the evacuation of Corsica
by the French troops was on the point of expiring. They had already
withdrawn from Ajaccio and Calvi, when the Genoese, finding themselves
utterly incapable of retaining possession of the island, offered to cede
their rights to the king of France. This was in 1768. The Duc de
Choiseul, the minister of Louis XV., lent a willing ear to a proposal
which opened the way to the conquest of Corsica—a prize, from its
situation, its forests, its fertility, worthy the ambition of the _Grand
Monarque_. The French generals, receiving immediate orders to cross the
neutral lines, soon made themselves masters of Capo Corso, and pushed
their successes on the eastern side of the island.
Pascal Paoli, his brother Clemente, and the other national leaders, were
not wanting in this crisis of the fate of Corsica, and the people rose
_en masse_ against the overwhelming force that threatened to crush
them. The war, though necessarily short, was marked by obstinate bravery
on the part of the Corsicans. The French troops having met with many
repulses, received a signal defeat at Borgo. There is scarcely a village
in the interior that is not illustrious for its patriotic efforts at
this period. Chauvelin, the French general-in-chief, was recalled, and,
ultimately, the Count de Vaux, an officer of experience, took the field
as generalissimo of the French army, swelled by successive
reinforcements to the vast force of 40,000 men.
The great blow which decided the fate of Corsica was struck at the
battle of Ponte Nuovo, of which some particulars are given in a former
chapter.[24] This defeat entirely demoralised the island militia, and
crushed Paoli's hopes of maintaining the nationality of Corsica.
Retiring to Corte, and thence, almost as a fugitive, to Vivario, in the
heart of the mountains, though he might still have maintained a
_guerilla_ warfare against the French, he resolved to abandon a forlorn
hope, and, pressed by a large body of the enemy's troops, embarked in an
English frigate at Porto Vecchio, with his brother Clemente and 300 of
his followers.
The conquest of Corsica cost France largely both in men and money, it
appearing by the official returns, that the loss sustained in killed and
wounded was 10,721 men, while the expense of the war was estimated at 18
millions of livres. The fate of the Corsicans met with general sympathy.
Rousseau on this occasion accused the French people of the basest love
of tyranny:—“_S'ils savoient un homme libre à l'autre bout du monde, je
crois qu'ils y iroient pour le seul plaisir de l'exterminer._”
After a short stay in Italy, Pascal Paoli proceeded to England, landing
at Harwich on the 18th of September, 1769. The succeeding twenty years
of his life were spent in London. He was well received by the king and
queen, and the ministers paid him the attention due to his rank and
services. But, though an object of much general interest, he shunned
publicity, living in Oxford Street in a dignified retirement. He joined,
however, in good society, and associated with the most eminent literary
men of the day, among whom it was observed that his talents and
accomplishments as much fitted him to shine, as at the head of his
patriotic countrymen. Boswell had the happiness of introducing him to
Johnson, and revelled in the glory of exhibiting his two lions on the
same stage.
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 parties—the 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 place—Ajaccio and
Bonifacio being already in the hands of the patriots—the 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 Corsica—so called even under the dominion
of the Genoese Republic—was 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, too—one of the oldest, if not the
oldest, in London—is 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 500_l._ 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 200_l._ to
the endowment of four professors in a college he proposed to found at
Corte. They were to teach—1st. 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 50_l._ 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 Bible—saying,
‘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 thing—whether it were man or
beast he could not at the moment distinguish—shrunk 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.