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.
[Illustration: HARBOUR OF AJACCIO.]
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 Corso—ladies with no covering for their
heads but the graceful black _faldetta_, French officers in not very
brilliant uniforms, and a sprinkling of ecclesiastics in _soutanes_ and
prodigious beavers.
Professor Porazzi took us to the only bookseller's shop in Ajaccio,
where we made some purchases. It was a small affair, the book trade
being combined with the sale of a variety of miscellaneous articles. The
_préfetture_, a handsome building, lately finished, contains a library
of 25,000 volumes. We were introduced there to M. Camille Friess, the
author of a compendious history of Corsica, who was kind enough to show
us some of the archives, of which he has the custody. Among the
documents connected with the Bonaparte family is a memorial, addressed
by Napoleon to the Intendant of Corsica, respecting his mother's right
to a garden. I jotted down the beginning and end:—
“_Memoire relative à la pépinière d'Ajaccio._
“_Letizia Ramolini, veuve de Buonaparte, d'Ajaccio, a l'honneur de vous
exposer...._
“_Votre très humble
et très obeissant serviteur_,
“BUONAPARTE[36], _Officier d'Artillerie_.
“_Hotel de Cherbourg_,
“_Rue St. Honoré, Paris, le 9 Nov. 1787._”
The claim for a few roods of nursery garden was made by a young man who
afterwards distributed kingdoms and principalities! It is said that in
the division of some property which fell to the family after he became
emperor, his share was an olive-yard in the environs of Ajaccio.
M. Friess obligingly gave me copies of the _procès-verbals_ of the
proceedings of the Council-General of the Department for the preceding
years. These reports are printed annually, and, I believe, similar ones
are made in all the departments of France. Those I possess are models of
good arrangement in whatever concerns provincial administration. They
have supplied more information on the present state of Corsica and its
prospects of improvement than all the books of travel, and works of
greater pretensions, it has been my fortune to meet with.
The Council-General, as many of my readers know, is a body elected by
the people; each canton, of which there are sixty-one in Corsica,
sending representatives in proportion to the population. The _préfet_,
who is _ex-officio_ president, opens the session by a speech, in which
he reviews the affairs of the department under the heads of finance,
public works, education, &c., &c., and presents a budget, with detailed
reports on the various branches of administration. All these are
printed, with a short _procès-verbal_ of the debates, and the divisions
when the Council-General comes to a vote. The proceedings are submitted
to the Minister of the Interior, who approves or rejects the proposals
made. Virtually, however, although the Council has no power to act on
its resolutions until they are confirmed by the central government,
whatever relates to the assessment of taxes, police, roads, and other
works, all matters of local interest not only come under discussion in
these provincial assemblies, but are shaped and decided by them. The
services thus rendered must therefore be very valuable, and it is worth
considering whether our over-worked House of Commons might not be
relieved of some of its burthens, and the business better done, by
similar representative bodies, entrusted with legislative powers so far
as concerns matters of local interest. Such assemblies would well accord
with our Anglo-Saxon institutions. But to give them a fair field, with
sufficient weight, impartiality, and importance, a considerable area
should be embraced in each jurisdiction. Durham might be united with
Yorkshire; the three western counties, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall,
might form a province; North and South Wales, each one. And what a
valuable body of statistics would be furnished by an annual report,
corresponding with those which have led to these remarks!
We gather some general statistics from these documents and other
sources.
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 mœurs 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 require—manufactured goods,
colonial produce, and even corn and cattle—in 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 there—Quarrel 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'Istria—both 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, cœnæque
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 tunes—‘Gilderoy,’ ‘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]