CHAPTER XI.

CORSICA UNDER PAOLI--TRAFFIC IN NATIONS--VICTORIES OVER THE FRENCH.

All the thoughts and wishes of the Corsican people were thus directed towards a common aim. The spirit of the nation was vigorous and buoyant; ennobled by the purest love of country, by a bravery that had become hereditary, by the sound simplicity of the constitution, which was no artificial product of foreign and borrowed theorizings, but the fruit of sacred, native tradition. The great citizen, Pasquale Paoli, was the father of his country. Wherever he showed himself, he was met by the love and the blessings of his people, and women and gray-haired men raised their children and children's children in their arms, that they might see the man who had made his country happy. The seaports, too, which had hitherto remained in the power of Genoa, became desirous of sharing the advantages of the Corsican constitution. Disturbances occurred; Carlo Masseria and his son undertook to deliver the castle of Ajaccio into the hands of the Nationalists by stratagem. The attempt failed. The son was killed, and the father, who had already received his death-wound, died without a complaint, upon the rack.

The Corsican people had now become so much stronger that, far from turning anxiously to some foreign power for aid, they found in themselves, not only the means of resistance, but even of attack and conquest. Their flag already waved on the waters of the Mediterranean. De Perez, a knight of Malta, was the admiral of their little fleet, which was occasioning the Genoese no small alarm. People said in Corsica that the position of the island might well entitle it to become a naval power--such as Greek islands in the eastern seas had formerly been; and a landing of the Corsicans on the coast of Liguria was no longer held impossible.

The conquest of the neighbouring island of Capraja gave such ideas a colour of probability; while it astonished the Genoese, and showed them that their fears were well grounded. This little island had in earlier times been part of the seigniory of the Corsican family of Da Mare, but had passed into the hands of the Genoese. It is not fertile, but an important and strong position in the Genoese and Tuscan waters. A Corsican named Centurini conceived the idea of surprising it. Paoli readily granted his consent, and in February 1765 a little expedition, consisting of two hundred regular troops and a body of militia, ran out from Cape Corso. They attacked the town of Capraja, which at first resisted vigorously, but afterwards made common cause with them. The Genoese commandant, Bernardo Ottone, held the castle, however, with great bravery; and Genoa, as soon as it heard of the occurrence, hastily despatched her fleet under Admiral Pinelli, who thrice suffered a repulse. In Genoa, such was the shame and indignation at not being able to rescue Capraja from the handful of Corsicans who had effected a lodgment in the town, that the whole Senate burst into tears. Once more they sent their fleet, forty vessels strong, against the island. The five hundred Corsicans under Achille Murati maintained the town, and drove the Genoese back into the sea. Bernardo Ottone surrendered in May 1767, and Capraja, now completely in possession of the Corsicans, was declared their province.

The fall of Capraja was a heavy blow to the Senate, and accelerated the resolution totally to relinquish the now untenable Corsica. But the enfeebled Republic delayed putting this painful determination into execution, till a blunder she herself committed forced her to it. It was about this time that the Jesuits were driven from France and Spain; the King of Spain had, however, requested the Genoese Senate to allow the exiles an asylum in Corsica. Genoa, to show him a favour, complied, and a large number of the Jesuit fathers one day landed in Ajaccio. The French, however, who had pronounced sentence of perpetual banishment on the Jesuits, regarded it as an insult on the part of Genoa, that the Senate should have opened to the fathers the Corsican seaports which they, the French, garrisoned. Count Marbœuf immediately received orders to withdraw his troops from Ajaccio, Calvi, and Algajola; and scarcely had this taken place, when the Corsicans exultingly occupied the city of Ajaccio, though the citadel was still in possession of a body of Genoese troops.

Under these circumstances, and considering the irritated state of feeling between France and Genoa, the Senate foresaw that it would have to give way to the Corsicans; it accordingly formed the resolution to sell its presumed claims upon the island to France.

The French minister, Choiseul, received the proposal with joy. The acquisition of so important an island in the Mediterranean seemed no inconsiderable advantage, and in some degree a compensation for the loss of Canada. The treaty was concluded at Versailles on the 15th of May 1768, and signed by Choiseul on behalf of France, and Domenico Sorba on behalf of Genoa. The Republic thus, contrary to all national law, delivered a nation, on which it had no other claim than that of conquest--a claim, such as it was, long since dilapidated--into the hands of a foreign despotic power, which had till lately treated with the same nation as with an independent people; and a free and admirably constituted state was thus bought and sold like some brutish herd. Genoa had, moreover, made the disgraceful stipulation that she should re-enter upon her rights, as soon as she was in a position to reimburse the expenses which France had incurred by her occupation of the island.

Before the French expedition quitted the harbours of Provence, rumours of the negotiations, which were at first kept secret, had reached Corsica. Paoli called a Consulta at Corte; and it was unanimously resolved to resist France to the last and uttermost, and to raise the population _en masse_. Carlo Bonaparte, father of Napoleon, delivered a manly and spirited speech on this occasion.

Meanwhile, Count Narbonne had landed with troops in Ajaccio; and the astonished inhabitants saw the Genoese colours lowered, and the white flag of France unfurled in their stead. The French still denied the real intention of their coming, and amused the Corsicans with false explanations, till the Marquis Chauvelin landed with all his troops in Bastia, as commander-in-chief.

The four years' treaty of occupation was to expire on the 7th August of the same year, and on that day it was expected hostilities would commence. But on the 30th of July, five thousand French, under the command of Marbœuf, marched from Bastia towards San Fiorenzo, and after some unsuccessful resistance on the part of the Corsicans, made themselves masters of various points in Nebbio. It thus became clear that the doom of the Corsicans had been pronounced. Fortune, always unkind to them, had constantly interposed foreign despots between them and Genoa; and regularly each time, as they reached the eve of complete deliverance, had hurled them back into their old misery.

Pasquale Paoli hastened to the district of Nebbio with some militia. His brother Clemens had already taken a position there with four thousand men. But the united efforts of both were insufficient to prevent Marbœuf from making himself master of Cape Corso. Chauvelin, too, now made his appearance with fifteen thousand French, sent to enslave the freest and bravest people in the world. He marched on the strongly fortified town of Furiani, accompanied by the traitor, Matias Buttafuoco of Vescovato--the first who loaded himself with the disgrace of earning gold and title from the enemy. Furiani was the scene of a desperate struggle. Only two hundred Corsicans, under Carlo Saliceti and Ristori, occupied the place; and they did not surrender even when the cannon of the enemy had reduced the town to a heap of ruins, but, sword in hand, dashed through the midst of the foe during the night, and reached the coast.

Conflicts equally sanguinary took place in Casinca, and on the Bridge of Golo. The French were repulsed at every point, and Clemens Paoli covered himself with glory. History mentions him and Pietro Colle as the heroes of this last struggle of the Corsicans for freedom.

The remains of the routed French threw themselves into Borgo, an elevated town in the mountains of Mariana, and reinforced its garrison. Paoli was resolved to gain the place, cost what it might; and he commenced his assault on the 1st of October, in the night. It was the most brilliant of all the achievements of the Corsicans. Chauvelin, leaving Bastia, moved to the relief of Borgo; he was opposed by Clemens, while Colle, Grimaldi, Agostini, Serpentini, Pasquale Paoli, and Achille Murati led the attack upon Borgo. Each side expended all its energies. Thrice the entire French army made a desperate onset, and it was thrice repulsed. The Corsicans, numerically so much inferior, and a militia, broke and scattered here the compact ranks of an army which, since the age of Louis XIV., had the reputation of being the best organized in Europe. Corsican women in men's clothes, and carrying musket and sword, were seen mixing in the thickest of the fight. The French at length retired upon Bastia. They had suffered heavily in killed and wounded--among the latter was Marbœuf; and seven hundred men, under Colonel Ludre, the garrison of Borgo, laid down their arms and surrendered themselves prisoners.

The battle of Borgo showed the French what kind of people they had come to enslave. They had now lost all the country except the strong seaports. Chauvelin wrote to his court, reported his losses, and demanded new troops. Ten fresh battalions were sent.