A PEEP AT CORSICAN HISTORY
A few of the main events in Corsican history during the last three or
four hundred years will be told in connection with the accounts given
in the following chapters, of the principal towns of the island. But
before speaking of these later years of bloodshed and strife, let us
get a glimpse of what happened during earlier times.
The first thing that strikes us on reading a history of Corsica is
that, though the people live upon a small island, they have never acted
as so many other island races have done. We never hear of Corsican
sailors setting forth on voyages of adventure or exploration. There
is no record of them invading the lands of their neighbours, either
upon the islands or upon the shores of the Mediterranean. They do not
appear to have practised piracy, preying upon the ships that passed
their very doors as they carried the goods of other countries to and
fro across the waters. As a rule, it may be said that they did not seek
to interfere with anyone else. But, on the other hand, many people
interfered with them. No one seemed to be able to leave them alone. The
Mediterranean was of old “the Great Sea.” On its waters the earliest
sailors of whom we know anything went out to trade and to travel. On
its shores many of the great nations that we read about first grew to
glory and then sank into silence. Amongst these we may mention the
people of Carthage, Greece, Rome, Pisa, and Genoa. All these in turn
invaded Corsica, and did their best to conquer the island.
Corsica was at one time in the hands of the Carthaginians, but between
two and three hundred years before the birth of Christ it passed
under the control of Rome, at that time the mistress of the world.
The Romans had their chief settlement at Aleria, near that Lake of
Diana of which we have already spoken. The Corsicans did not tamely
submit to the Roman invaders. They never, in fact, tamely submitted to
anyone. They fought with courage and cunning. Like true mountaineers,
they were hardy and fearless. They captured one of the Roman generals,
and sent him home with a treaty of peace which they had forced him to
sign. They rebelled over and over again, and it took the Romans nearly
a hundred years before they obtained a peaceful occupation. Even then
the islanders had not been completely conquered, and it was only in the
lands by the sea that the Romans could really call themselves masters.
The next invaders came from the north of Europe--Goths and Vandals,
those wild and wandering tribes that broke the power of Rome. They were
followed about A.D. 720 by the Moors, who, having conquered Spain and
passed the Pyrenees, turned their attention to this isle of the sea.
About A.D. 1000, a number of lords leagued themselves together and set
up a capital at Corté, in the centre of the island. They treated the
people with great cruelty, and their subjects rose in rebellion and
largely destroyed their power. It would take too long to tell here
how, towards the end of the eleventh century, the Pisans conquered the
island from the Moors, and how, about the middle of the fourteenth
century, it passed finally to the Genoese. In 1768 Genoa sold the
island to France; from 1793 to 1796 it belonged to England; it then
passed once more under the control of France, and with them it has
remained to this day, slowly but surely becoming more civilized and
peaceful. But though the story is too long to tell in detail, yet a
few incidents may be related merely to illustrate the quarrelsome,
restless, and withal independent character of the people.
One feudal lord treated his retainers with great severity. Amongst
them was a very daring man, whose heart burned at the injuries he had
received. He came to his master and offered him a beautiful horse as
a present. He proposed to the signor that he should come and see the
animal put through its paces. The lord never dreamt that his vassal
would dare to attack him, and left his friends and retainers behind.
When they were in a lonely place, the vassal suddenly whirled a
lasso over his head, caught his master round the neck, put spurs to
his horse, and galloped away as fast as he could, thus dragging his
prisoner after him and strangling him. When the man returned home, he
was treated with great respect by his neighbours, for they looked upon
him as a brave man, who had fought not only his own battles, but theirs
also.
On another occasion, two of these great lords and their followers met
one another and entered into conversation. While they were talking, two
of their servants quarrelled. One of them picked up a little dog and
threw it at the other. The dog missed the man at whom it was thrown and
hit his lord instead. The great man was furious. He refused to accept
any apology, and a quarrel broke out between the two friends which
lasted many a day and cost many a life.
[Illustration: BAKING OVEN, ALERIA. _Page 11._]
The rule of the Genoese lasted for 400 years, during which time the
people were fined, exiled, and ill-treated in many ways. Most of the
great names in Corsican history are the names of the men who, from time
to time, called the people to arms, and tried to drive the oppressors
away. One of the most famous of these was a man called Sampiero. He was
born in 1497 and died in 1567, so that his life was lived during the
time that Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth sat
upon the English throne. Many are the stories that are told of Sampiero
that preserve for us the memories of his great courage and strength.
When at Rome, a rival defied him to fight a wild bull. He accepted
the challenge, tackled the bull, and killed it. Sampiero entered the
French army, and at the siege of a certain town he, with the aid of
fifty Italians, put 500 Spanish knights to flight. About the year 1553
he went to Corsica, and, assisted by the soldiers of France and the
ships of Turkey, he attempted to drive the Genoese from the island. Six
years later France made peace with Genoa, and took away her troops,
but the Corsicans had no idea of surrendering, and Sampiero remained
their leader. As he made little headway against the foe, he went to
Constantinople and other places on the Continent to get foreign friends
to aid him. While he was absent at Constantinople, he left his wife
Vanina and his younger son at Marseilles. During his absence a priest,
a pretended friend, persuaded Vanina that it would be well for her to
go to Genoa. He told her that if she would surrender herself to the
Genoese her husband would be pardoned, and the lands that had been
taken away from him would be restored. She listened eagerly, agreed to
the proposal, and set sail for Genoa. But some of Sampiero’s friends
heard of this, pursued her, caught her, and managed to prevent her from
surrendering to their violently hated foe. When Sampiero came home and
heard that his wife had actually tried to make terms for him with the
Genoese, his anger knew no bounds. He told her to prepare for instant
death, and ordered her black slaves to strangle her. She pleaded for
mercy, but he would not listen. Then she asked that if she had to die
she might die by his hands, and not by the hands of slaves. He begged
her pardon for the awful punishment he was about to inflict, and then
straightway killed her. In the end he paid for this cruel deed with
his own life, for his wife’s relatives were determined to avenge her
death. They sent a false message to Sampiero by a trusted servant,
telling him to go to a certain place to put down a rising. His way lay
through a narrow defile, and there, behind the rocks, his enemies lay
concealed. At a convenient moment they surrounded him and fired upon
him. He fought valiantly for his life, but fell at last, stabbed to the
heart. His head was cut off and taken to the Genoese, as evidence that
their powerful foe was dead. Sampiero was nearly seventy when he died.
Except for the murder of his wife, whom he regarded as a traitor to his
country, his life was singularly pure and upright, and he was respected
by friend and foe alike. Here for the present we may leave off our
history. What remains to be told can best be related in connection with
one or two of the towns that we shall presently describe.