CHAPTER XII.

THE DYING STRUGGLE.

The sympathy for the Corsicans had now become livelier than ever. In England especially, public opinion spoke loudly for the oppressed nation, and called upon the Government to interfere against such shameless and despotic exercise of power on the part of France. It was said Lord Chatham really entertained the idea of intimating England's decided disapproval of the French policy. Certainly the eyes of the Corsicans turned anxiously towards the free and constitutional Great Britain; they hoped that a great and free nation would not suffer a free people to be crushed. They were deceived. The British cabinet forbade, as in the year 1760, all intercourse with the Corsican "rebels." The voice of the English people became audible only here and there in meetings, and with these and private donations of money, the matter rested. The cabinets, however, were by no means sorry that a perilous germ of democratic freedom should be stifled along with a heroic nationality.

Pasquale Paoli saw well how dangerous his position was, notwithstanding the success that had attended the efforts of his people. He made proposals for a treaty, the terms of which acknowledged the authority of the French king, left the Corsicans their constitution, and allowed the Genoese a compensation. His proposals were rejected; and preparations continued to be made for a final blow. Chauvelin meanwhile felt his weakness. It has been affirmed that he allowed the Genoese to teach him intrigue; Paoli, like Sampiero and Gaffori, was to be removed by the hand of the assassin. Treachery is never wanting in the history of brave and free nations; it seems as if human nature could not dispense with some shadow of baseness where its nobler qualities shine with the purest light. A traitor was found in the son of Paoli's own chancellor, Matias Maffesi; letters which he lost divulged his secret purpose. Placed at the bar of the Supreme Council, he confessed, and was delivered over to the executioner. Another complot, formed by the restless Dumouriez, at that time serving in Corsica, to carry off Paoli during the night from his own house at Isola Rossa, also failed.

Chauvelin had brought his ten new battalions into the field, but they had met with a repulse from the Corsicans in Nebbio. Deeply humiliated, the haughty Marquis sent new messengers to France to represent the difficulty of subduing Corsica. The French government at length recalled Chauvelin from his post in December 1768, and Marbœuf was made interim commander, till Chauvelin's successor, Count de Vaux, should arrive.

De Vaux had served in Corsica under Maillebois; he knew the country, and how a war in it required to be conducted. Furnished with a large force of forty-five battalions, four regiments of cavalry, and considerable artillery, he determined to end the conflict at a single blow. Paoli saw how heavily the storm was gathering, and called an assembly in Casinca on the 15th of April 1769. It was resolved to fight to the last drop of blood, and to bring every man in Corsica into the field. Lord Pembroke, Admiral Smittoy, other Englishmen, Germans, and Italians, who were present, were astonished by the calm determination of the militia who flocked into Casinca. Many foreigners joined the ranks of the Corsicans. A whole company of Prussians, who had been in the service of Genoa, came over to their side. No one, however, could conceal from himself the gloominess of the Corsican prospects; French gold was already doing its work; treachery was rearing its head; even Capraja had fallen through the treasonable baseness of its commandant, Astolfi.

Corsica's fatal hour was at hand. England did not, as had been hoped, interfere; the French were advancing in full force upon Nebbio. This mountain province, traversed by a long, narrow valley, had frequently already been the scene of decisive conflicts. Paoli, leaving Saliceti and Serpentini in Casinca, had established his head-quarters here; De Vaux, Marbœuf, and Grand-Maison entered Nebbio to annihilate him at once. The attack commenced on the 3d of May. After the battle had lasted three days, Paoli was driven from his camp at Murati. He now concluded to cross the Golo, and place that river between himself and the enemy. He fixed his head-quarters in Rostino, and committed to Gaffori and Grimaldi the defence of Leuto and Canavaggia, two points much exposed to the French. Grimaldi betrayed his trust; and Gaffori, for what reason is uncertain, also failed to maintain his post.

The French, finding the country thus laid open to them, descended from the heights, and pressed onwards to Ponte Nuovo, the bridge over the Golo. The main body of the Corsicans was drawn up on the further bank; above a thousand of them, along with the company of Prussians, covered the bridge. The French, whose descent was rapid and unexpected, drove in the militia, and these, thrown into disorder and seized with panic, crowded towards the bridge and tried to cross. The Prussians, however, who had received orders to bring the fugitives to a halt, fired in the confusion on their own friends, while the French fired upon their rear, and pushed forward with the bayonet. The terrible cry of "Treachery!" was heard. In vain did Gentili attempt to check the disorder; the rout became general, no position was any longer tenable, and the militia scattered themselves in headlong flight among the woods, and over the adjacent country. The unfortunate battle of Ponte Nuovo was fought on the 9th of May 1769, and on that day the Corsican nation lost its independence.

Paoli still made an attempt to prevent the enemy from entering the province of Casinca. But it was too late. The whole island, this side the mountains, fell in a few days into the hands of the French; and that instinctive feeling of being lost beyond help, which sometimes, in moments of heavy misfortune, seizes on the minds of a people with overwhelming force, had taken possession of the Corsicans. They needed a man like Sampiero. Paoli despaired. He had hastened to Corte, almost resolved to leave his country. The brave Serpentini still kept the field in Balagna, with Clemens Paoli at his side, who was determined to fight while he drew breath; and Abatucci still maintained himself beyond the mountains with a band of bold patriots. All was not yet lost; it was at least possible to take to the fastnesses and guerilla fighting, as Renuccio, Vincentello, and Sampiero had done. But the stubborn hardihood of those men of the iron centuries, was not and could not be part of Paoli's character; nor could he, the lawgiver and Pythagoras of his people, lower himself to range the hills with guerilla bands. Shuddering at the thought of the blood with which a protracted struggle would once more deluge his country, he yielded to destiny. His brother Clemens, Serpentini, Abatucci, and others joined him. The little company of fugitives hastened to Vivario, then, on the 11th of June, to the Gulf of Porto Vecchio. There they embarked, three hundred Corsicans, in an English ship, given them by Admiral Smittoy, and sailed for Tuscany, from which they proceeded to England, which has continued ever since to be the asylum of the fugitives of ruined nationalities, and has never extended her hospitality to nobler exiles.

Not a few, comparing Pasquale Paoli with the old tragic Corsican heroes, have accused him of weakness. Paoli's own estimate of himself appears from the following extract from one of his letters:--"If Sampiero had lived in my day, the deliverance of my country would have been of less difficult accomplishment. What we attempted to do in constituting the nationality, he would have completed. Corsica needed at that time a man of bold and enterprising spirit, who should have spread the terror of his name to the very _comptoirs_ of Genoa. France would not have mixed herself in the struggle, or, if she had, she would have found a more terrible adversary than any I was able to oppose to her. How often have I lamented this! Assuredly not courage nor heroic constancy was wanting in the Corsicans; what they wanted was a leader, who could combine and conduct the operations of the war in the face of experienced generals. We should have shared the noble work; while I laboured at a code of laws suitable to the traditions and requirements of the island, his mighty sword should have had the task of giving strength and security to the results of our common toil."

On the 12th of June 1769, the Corsican people submitted to French supremacy. But while they were yet in all the freshness of their sorrow, that centuries of unexampled conflict should have proved insufficient to rescue their darling independence; and while the warlike din of the French occupation still rang from end to end of the island, the Corsican nation produced, on the 15th of August, in unexhausted vigour, one hero more, Napoleon Bonaparte, who crushed Genoa, who enslaved France, and who avenged his country. So much satisfaction had the Fates reserved for the Corsicans in their fall; and such was the atoning close they had decreed to the long tragedy of their history.

[A] Thus referred to by Boswell in his _Account of Corsica_:--"The Corsicans have no drums, trumpets, fifes, or any instrument of warlike music, except a large Triton shell, pierced in the end, with which they make a sound loud enough to be heard at a great distance.... Its sound is not shrill, but rather flat, like that of a large horn."--_Tr._