PAOLI
Perhaps the best known of all the Corsican heroes is the last upon
the national roll, Pascal Paoli. He is certainly the most popular in
his native land, where he is affectionately called the “Father of the
People.” In many an out-of-the-way village, in many a lonely mountain
inn, his portrait hangs upon the wall, where it is always regarded
with respect. Paoli was born at the hamlet of Stretta in 1726. His
father’s house was a mere cottage of the usual ugly and uncomfortable
pattern. When the boy was twelve years old, his father was ordered by
the Genoese to leave the island. He went to Naples, and took Pascal
with him. But seventeen years later (1755), when the Corsicans had
once more risen in revolt against the Genoese, Pascal was invited to
return to his native land and become the leader of his countrymen. The
Genoese were assisted by the French, but in the end they grew weary of
a conflict where they were never sure of victory, and they sold the
island to the French. But the Corsicans were as much opposed to the
idea of being governed by France as they had been to that of being
governed by Genoa. What they wanted was complete independence, and a
war broke out with the object of gaining it. This war was fought with
great bravery on both sides. The islanders were united by love of
freedom, and were supported and encouraged by their confidence in their
leader.
“Paoli is in danger!” said a widow to her only son, as she handed him
her late husband’s pistols; “haste to his assistance.” Another woman
led the last of four sons to the General, saying, “I had three sons who
have died for their country, and I bring you the last.”
There were successes and defeats on both sides, but finally, on May
9, 1769, the Corsicans were severely repulsed at the Battle of Ponte
Nuovo. The spirit of the vanquished islanders is shown in the reply
that one of them made to a French officer who had found him lying
wounded on the field of battle.
Said the Frenchman, “Where is your doctor?”
“We have none.”
“What becomes of you, then?”
“We die.”
Paoli himself escaped on board a British ship. He lay during the
voyage hidden in a sea-chest, in case the vessel should be boarded and
searched by a French cruiser. When he landed at Leghorn he was greeted
by the people rather as a hero and a conqueror than as one who had just
suffered complete defeat upon the field. He made his way to England,
and here he received a pension of £1,200 a year, which enabled him to
live comfortably in London. Boswell, the friend of Dr. Johnson, had
once visited Paoli in Corsica, and he now introduced the exile to his
friends. He tells us: “On the evening of October 10 (1769) I presented
Dr. Johnson to General Paoli. I had greatly wished that two men for
whom I had the highest esteem should meet. They met with manly ease.
General Paoli spoke Italian and Dr. Johnson English, and understood
one another very well with a little interpretation from me, in which
I compared myself to an isthmus which joins two great continents
together.”
Paoli’s own account of how he first met Boswell is told by an English
lady[C] who, in writing down what she heard, used the actual words of
the speaker. Paoli said to her: “He came to my country, and he fetched
me some letter of recommending him; but I was of the belief he might be
an impostor and one spy; and I only find I was the monster he had come
to see. Oh! he is a very good man. I love him indeed; so cheerful! so
gay! so pleasant! but at the first, oh! I was indeed angry.”
[C] Fanny Burney.
And he told the same lady another little story about himself in the
same queer broken English: “I walk out in the night--I go towards the
field; I behold a man--oh, ugly one! I proceed--he follow; I go on--he
address me: ‘You have one dog,’ he says. ‘Yes,’ say I to him. ‘Is he a
fierce dog?’ he says. ‘Is he fiery?’ ‘Yes,’ reply I, ‘he can bite.’ ‘I
would not attack in the night,’ says he, ‘a house to have such a dog in
it.’ Then I conclude he is a breaker, so I turn to him--oh, very rough,
not gentle--and I say, very fierce, ‘He shall destroy you, if you are
ten.’”
When Pascal left the island after the Battle of Ponte Nuovo, his
brother Clement continued the fighting for a little while; but when
he knew that the General was safe, he gave up the struggle, went to
Florence, and became a monk. This Clement was a very religious man,
and it is said that always, on the field of battle, every shot that he
fired was accompanied by a prayer for the soul of the man that it might
slay.
When the French Revolution broke out, the Corsicans made yet another
attempt to regain their freedom, and Paoli was sent back to the island
as Lieutenant-Governor, with full control over the whole military
system of Corsica. On his arrival at Marseilles he was met by a body of
his countrymen, who had come to welcome and escort him home. Amongst
those who greeted him with great rejoicing was the young Napoleon.
Before long Paoli became disgusted with the murders that were being
committed in the name of Liberty by the mob at Paris. Five days after
the French King had been executed by his own subjects, Corsica declared
herself free of France, and Paoli was elected Commander-in-Chief and
ruler of the island. “Long live Paoli!” they shouted. “Paoli shall
reign over us! We agree to all that he asks. Vengeance and ruin to his
enemies!”
It was soon evident, however, that the Corsicans could not preserve
their independence against so powerful a foe, and upon the advice of
Paoli, and with the approval of a number of Corsican nobles, the crown
was offered to George III., the King of England. It was accepted on
his behalf by Sir George Elliott. The mass of the people was still
dissatisfied. They wanted to govern themselves, and they loved the
English no better than they had loved the Saracen, the Genoese, or
the French. After two years England abandoned the island, and it then
passed again into the possession of the French, who hold it to this day.
A year before the English forces left the island, Paoli had been
requested to return to London, as his presence in Corsica was found to
be rather inconvenient in many ways. He obeyed the summons to return,
and he lived in London for the next twelve years on a pension of £2,000
a year, granted to him by the English King. He died at the age of
eighty-two, and was buried in old St. Pancras Churchyard. In 1889 his
body was taken back to the land for which he had so bravely fought, and
was laid to rest in his native village.
[Illustration: HOUSES, AJACCIO. _Page 34._]
Paoli’s life in London was, after all, a fairly pleasant one, for not
only had he money to spend, but he knew Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds,
and all the leading men of the day. He lived in good style, and Dr.
Johnson says that he “loved to dine” at the General’s house. About six
months before Johnson died he was entertained by Paoli, and Boswell
tells us: “There was a variety of dishes, much to his [Johnson’s]
taste, of all of which he seemed to me to eat so much that I was afraid
he might be hurt by it, and I whispered to the General my fear, and
begged he might not press him. ‘Alas!’ said the General, ‘see how very
ill he looks; he can live but a very short time. Would you refuse any
slight gratifications to a man under sentence of death?’ There is a
humane custom in Italy by which persons in that melancholy situation
are indulged with having whatever they like to eat and drink, even with
expensive delicacies.” Boswell makes the General speak like a master
of English. That he did not actually talk like this we know from other
writers, and by way of conclusion we may tell another little story in
his own words. While he was residing in London, he was one day taken
to see an Irish giant that was then on show. He says, “He is so large
I am as a baby! I look at him--oh, I find myself so little as a child.
Indeed, my indignation it rises when I see him hold up his hand so
high. I am as nothing, and I find myself in the power of a man who
fetches from me half a crown.”