CORTÉ
Somewhere about the year 1000 a number of feudal lords, or “signori,”
leagued themselves together and set up a capital at Corté, the centre
of the island, and in the very heart of the mountains. What the place
looked like in those days we have no means of knowing, for in this, as
in most of the other towns of the island, there is nothing belonging
to the remote past to remind us of very early events in the history of
the land. Corté is lonely enough still, and you may wander for days
in the great granite hills without meeting a single human being. The
circle of gorges, the ravines, and the mountains present to us the
same features that they presented to the feudal lords, and account for
the choice of the position of the feudal capital, and for the part
which the town has played in the military history of Corsica. Corté
is a proud and heroic town. Around it have gathered numerous stories
of gallant attacks upon the grim and frowning citadel that has been
both won and lost by Corsicans, Genoese, and French. The men of this
proud hill-fortress have throughout the centuries ever been faithful to
their country, and willing to shed their blood for it. They are worthy
descendants of a people that honours only the warriors that have led
them to the field, a people whose only literature consists of wild
songs of war, and chants that call aloud for vengeance on oppressors.
The women have at all times been as true and as valiant as the men.
They are, as they have always been, noted for their beauty. At the time
when the hand of the Genoese lay heavy upon their land they vowed never
to marry, that they might not give birth to slaves.
Corté is connected by rail with Ajaccio, and there are probably few
visitors to the island who do not, during their stay, forsake the
orange-trees and the palms upon the coast to visit the barren hills
where the feudal capital once stood. Preferring the road to the rail,
I made the journey from the sea to the mountains by bicycle, walking
the greater part of the way and freewheeling the rest, ascending and
descending continually the steep granite waves which rise and fall from
one end of the island to the other.
At the foot of the rock on which the modern town stands it is necessary
to dismount from the bicycle. The houses and the churches are
far above on the crest of a great billow of rock. Corté can hardly
be said to stand on the side of the mountain. It does not stand; it
floats. Towering above all on a slightly higher crest of granite, is
the citadel, which was erected about the fifteenth century. Here and
there amongst the tall houses are dotted the slender campanili which
are common in most of the towns of Southern Europe. As seen in the
distance, the appearance of the citadel-crowned breaker, with the
smaller undulations of white and grey houses, is eminently picturesque.
On closer acquaintance the most noticeable thing is dirt. In a general
way it may be quite truthfully said that the more attractive a Corsican
town may appear in the distance, the less comfortable it proves when
you wish to stay there.
[Illustration: CORTÉ, THE CITADEL.]
We ascended on foot the steep and narrow streets, assailed from time to
time by crowds of stone-throwing children. As we returned soft smiles
for hard stones, we soon became good friends with the little ones;
in fact, their friendship for us proved so strong that it became a
nuisance. The moment a camera was erected all the youngsters crowded in
front of it, and insisted on forming a part of the picture. In Siam,
as soon as the natives see a camera they run away; in certain parts of
Holland the children will allow themselves to be photographed if they
are paid for it; but in Corsica everyone wants to be photographed, and
the sight of a Kodak will produce a crowd at any hour of the day. To
escape the troop of followers, we went into the church. While we were
pretending to be solemnly gazing at the altar, the children marched in
after us by the dozen and played at leap-frog over the chairs, while
the breezes wafted into the sacred building odours that overpowered the
incense and nearly killed the worshippers.
Finding that it was quite impossible to escape the crowd, we went
outside into the open air again and began to work. Our first object of
attack was the Maison Gaffori, in front of which stands a statue of
Gaffori, one of the many Corsican heroes who headed revolts against the
Genoese. On the side of the pedestal that supports the statue there are
a number of carvings, one of which recalls a story of the bravery of
the General’s wife.
In the year 1750 this house was besieged by the Genoese. Gaffori was
absent, and the defence of the home rested entirely upon his wife
and servants. When the servants began to get frightened, and to talk
of surrender, their mistress went into a lower room, got a barrel of
powder and a torch, and threatened to blow herself and all the rest
of them to pieces if they left off firing. The servants, under the
circumstances, wisely continued their resistance, and held the Genoese
in check until their master returned and drove the enemy away. It was
in this house that Joseph Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon, and
afterwards King of Spain, was born.
We escaped the crowd at last, and tried to find our way to the citadel.
We wandered through winding streets and crooked alleys, and arrived as
often as not at the end of a blind passage, blocked with manure-heaps
and piles of disgusting refuse. Finally, guided by two or three small
children, we clambered to the summit of a rock, from which the citadel
could be seen on the other side of a deep but narrow valley. We were
on the edge of a precipice unguarded by wall or railing, and on the
edge of which the children skipped about as carelessly and as safely as
their own mountain-goats. We turned our faces away from the children
and their perilous amusements, in order to view the great citadel
crowning a rock that rises up 400 feet sheer above the river that
foams at its base. There were men inside the fort, but we could not
see them. Doubtless there were guns too, but they, like the soldiers,
were invisible. Not such was the scene in 1746, when Gaffori made up
his mind to recapture the fort from the Genoese, who were then in
possession of this mountain stronghold. There was noise enough then,
as the brave General directed a steady and vigorous assault upon the
walls. So skilful and so persistent was the attack that the Genoese
commander began to have grave doubts as to his ability to hold the
place. It so happened that amongst the prisoners within the fort
was Gaffori’s youngest son. The Genoese leader ordered the boy to
be brought out and bound to the outside of the walls, thinking that
this would certainly put an end to the firing. For a moment his plan
succeeded: the guns were silent; the Corsicans gazed in terror, first
at the boy, and then at their horrified leader. But the period of peace
passed quickly away. Gaffori, fear and resolution painfully mingled in
his breast, shrieked the command, “Fire!” Out burst the artillery with
redoubled fury. The fort was captured, and Gaffori was rewarded, not
only with the possession of an ancient fort, but with the yet dearer
treasure of a living son.
Gaffori died, as so many of his countrymen have died, by the hand of
an assassin, and the assassin was a man of this very town. But the
inhabitants of Corté marked their horror of the deed by destroying the
house of the murderer, and the spot where that house once stood remains
bare unto this day.