It is not known who the original inhabitants of Corsica were. The
Phocæans of Ionia were the first civilised people that established
settlements in Corsica. About the year 560 B.C. they landed on the
island, and founded at the mouth of the Tavignano the city of Aleria,
which after a short occupation they were compelled to abandon. After an
interval of a few years they again returned, rebuilt Aleria, which they
fortified, and endeavoured to maintain their ground against the natives.
After a struggle of some years they were again compelled to leave the
island. The next foreign occupants of Corsica were the Tuscans, who
founded the city of Nicæa, but they in their turn were compelled to give
way before the growing maritime power of the Carthaginians, whose
jurisdiction in the island was unquestioned till the beginning of the
first Punic War. On that occasion the Romans sent out a fleet, drove the
Carthaginians from the island, and exacted at least a nominal homage
from the native population. They did not, however, fully establish their
power here till about thirty years later, and even then rebellions and
revolts were of constant occurrence.
[Headnote: ROMAN COLONIES.]
The first step made towards the real subjugation of the island was the
establishment of the two colonies on its eastern coast-that of Aleria by
Sulla and that of Mariana by Marius. In the time of the emperors the
island had fallen into disrepute among the Romans, by whom it was used
chiefly as a place of banishment for political offenders. One of the
most distinguished of these sufferers was the younger Seneca, who spent
in this island eight years of banishment ending with 49 A.D.
[Headnote: ARMS.] On the downfall of the Roman empire in the West,
Corsica passed into the hands of the Vandals. These barbarians were
driven out by Belisarius, but after his death, 565 A.D., the resistless
hordes of Attila once more gained possession of the island. Since that
period it has successively owned the dominion of the Goths, the
Saracens, the Pisans and the Genoese. The impress of the last is to be
found in the style of the church architecture, while the armorial crest
of the island, a Moor's head, with a band across the brow, dates from
the expedition of the Saracen king, Sanza Ancisa.
The patroness of Corsica, the "Protectrice de la Corse," is Santa
Devota; who is also the patron saint of Monaco. The Corsicans often
style the Virgin Mary simply La Santa; and in their common exclamation
Santa! Maria is understood.
[Headnote: SAMPIERO.]
Among the most renowned and intrepid patriots in the struggle of the
Corsicans to free themselves from the Genoese was Sampiero, born of poor
parents towards the end of the 15th cent, in Dominicacci, one of the
hamlets which compose Bastelica. His house having been burned down by
the Genoese, the inhabitants in the 18th cent. constructed a new one on
the same site, on which Mr. Wyse, an Irishman, affixed a tablet with an
inscription in 1855, expressing his admiration of the man. After serving
with great distinction in the armies of the Italian princes and in those
of Francis I., King of France, Sampiero returned to Corsica in 1547 and
married the fair Vanina, heiress of Ornano, belonging to one of the
oldest families in the island.
Shortly after the marriage the Corsicans, led by Sampiero, revolted
against the tyranny of the Banking Company of St. George of Genoa, and,
assisted by the French, under General Thermes, overthrew them after six
years of hard fighting and much bloodshed, in which Sampiero and his
peasant army bore by far the greatest share. All, however, they had
gained at such immense sacrifice was completely lost to them by the
treaty of Chateau Cambresis, 1559, by which France agreed to restore
Corsica to Genoa. Sampiero and his family had to leave the island. Such
was the virulent and implacable hatred Sampiero bore to the Genoese,
that he with his own hand, in cold blood, strangled mercilessly his
trembling wife three years after (1562) in Marseilles, for having
allowed herself, in his absence, to be persuaded to make an arrangement
with the Genoese to save the patrimony of her children. Sampiero escaped
with impunity, although he buried his murdered wife publicly, and with
pomp, in the church of St. Francis at Marseilles.
Antonio Francesco, the younger son, who was, when a mere child, with his
mother when she was murdered, was afterwards assassinated at Rome by a
Frenchman, whom he had insulted while playing at cards.
On the 12th June 1564 Sampiero landed at the Gulf of Valinco with a band
of 20 Corsicans and 25 Frenchmen, to make another desperate attempt to
free Corsica from the hated yoke. After a five years' life-and-death
struggle, fired by a feverish thirst for revenge, the Corsicans had to
yield to the might of Genoa, supported by well-drilled Italian, German
and Spanish mercenaries, commanded by their greatest generals, Doria,
Centurione and Spinola, and aided by a powerful fleet.
On the 17th January 1567 Sampiero was slain in an ambuscade laid for him
in the defile of Cauro, into which he had been led by forged letters
brought him by the monk Ambrosius of Bastelica.
His elder son Alfonso d'Ornano continued the struggle after his father's
death, till the exhausted state of Corsica compelled him to desist and
to accept a general amnesty proclaimed by the Genoese governor George
Doria in 1569. Alfonso d'Ornano was afterwards created "Maréchal de
France."
[Headnote: PASCAL PAOLI.]
From 1755 the Corsicans, led by the brave Pascal Paoli, carried on the
struggle for their independence against the Genoese, who were
occasionally assisted by the French. On the 15th May 1768 the former
sold their presumed claims to the island to the French, who ended this
war of subjugation by the terrible battle of Ponte Nuovo, 9th May 1769.
On the llth of June Paoli left Porto-Vecchio for London; where, at the
instance of the Duke of Grafton, then prime minister of England, he
received an annual pension of £1200.
After Corsica had been made one of the departments of France he was
invited in 1790, by the National Assembly, to take the supreme command
in the island. On his arrival at Paris (3d April 1790), on his way to
Corsica, he was fêted as the Washington of Europe, and Lafayette was
constantly by his side; while, on his arrival at Marseilles, he was
received by a deputation, among whom was Napoleon. In July 1790 he
landed at Macinaggio, on the east side of Cap Corse.
The execution of the king and the cruelties and excesses of the
Convention having shocked the philanthropic spirit of Paoli and
alienated his sympathies, he organised a revolt to separate Corsica from
France, and succeeded by the aid of the English fleet, 20th July 1794,
when Calvi, the last of the forts, surrendered. On the 10th of June 1794
the Corsicans declared that they would unite their country to Great
Britain, but that it was to remain independent, and to be governed by a
viceroy according to their own constitution.
The English, from ignorance, managed the affairs of the island so badly,
that when in 1796 Napoleon sent troops against them, they were joined by
the Corsicans, who together forced the English to leave the island. Not
only had a certain Gilbert Elliot been named viceroy instead of Paoli,
but this same man having written to the Government that it was necessary
for the safety of the English to remove Paoli from the island, George
III. wrote Paoli a letter inviting him to return to England and to his
court. It is suspected that Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, president of the
Council of State, under the short viceroyship of Elliot, influenced, for
his own ends or from jealousy, the English in Corsica against Paoli.
Paoli lived twelve years more in London, died peacefully on 5th February
1807 at the age of 82, was buried in St. Pancras churchyard, and a small
monument to his memory was placed in Westminster Abbey. He bequeathed to
four professors of the intended Corté University salaries of £50 a year
each, but as it was never established the money was given to the Ecole
Paoli in Corté, attended by 120 pupils.
Since the expulsion of the English, the French have remained in
undisturbed possession of Corsica. The English occupation lasted from
1794 to 1796.
[Headnote: CHARACTER.]
The Corsicans look to the Government for the improvement of their island
far more than to their own efforts, for they themselves are neither
industrious nor enterprising. The roads, railways, bridges and other
public works are constructed chiefly by Italian labourers. The women do
the drudgery both in their homes and on the fields, carrying great loads
on their heads, as the mules do on their backs; but bestow little labour
on the cleanliness of their children and dwellings, and do not make good
domestic servants. In many small towns women are the bread bakers and
assistant butchers. The villages, excepting in Cape Corse, are untidy.
The use of the bath is almost unknown to young and old, rich and poor.
[Headnote: VENDETTA.]
The tendency to take summary vengeance, called vendetta, still exists in
the villages; where the people having no social amusements, nothing to
read, nor any other resource than cards during the winter nights, are
apt to quarrel over trifles; which, fanned by their local petty
jealousies, assisted often by the generous nature of their wine, ripen
into deadly feuds.
[Headnote: OAKS.]
The staple food of the majority of the inhabitants, as well as of the
horses and mules, during a great part of the year, is the chestnut. For
domestic purposes it is mostly ground, when it costs only about half the
price of wheat flour, which is procured chiefly from Marseilles, Corsica
itself producing very little. The ease with which the harvest of
chestnuts is annually obtained tends to foster indolence and deaden
enterprise among the peasantry. The one great danger to which the
generous chestnut trees are exposed is a conflagration. Besides olives,
pines, beeches and chestnuts, there are also important forests of
evergreen oaks, the Quercus Ilex, called also the holm oak. It has
abundance of dark-green ovate leaves, mostly prickly at the margin; the
acorns are oblong on short stalks; the stem grows to the height of 80
ft.; the wood is dark-brown and hard, weighing 70 lbs. the cubic foot,
while the same of the Quercus ruber or British oak weighs only 55 lbs.,
and the tree attains a vast age. The cork oak, Quercus suber, grows
either singly among other trees or in groups, principally in the
southern parts of the island. The bark is of little commercial
importance.
[Headnote: AGRICULTURE.]
The inhabitants do not assist nature. Their seed potatoes are of an
inferior class, their fruit trees receive little attention, very few
of the vineyards are carefully cultivated, and their sheep, goats
and pigs are of poor breeds. Of late years many have taken to the
growing of lemons and citrons; which in a good year yield a very
handsome profit; but the harvest, through untimely frosts, is
precarious. The headquarters of this culture is Cape Corse. The
olive trees yield a more secure though less remunerative harvest.
That terrible scourge the phylloxera has got among the vineyards,
where it is committing its usual havoc.
The drives and pedestrian excursions about Corsica are superb,
especially along the east side and up the centre by Sartène, Zicavo
and Ghisoni (p. 27), and the road between Calvi and Ponte alla
Leccia (p. 20). There are inns in all the large villages, though the
only good and comfortable hotels are in Ajaccio.
[Headnote: FORESTHOUSES.]
Enterprising tourists wishing to explore the great forests and to
scale the mountains should endeavour to procure letters of
introduction from the chief forestal authorities at Ajaccio, Corté,
Bastia or Calvi to the occupants of the Maisons Forestières in the
forests to be visited. Although the gardes forestières are generally
hospitable, they are afraid to follow their inclination without
orders from their superiors. For each day in these houses 7 to 8
frs. should be given.