CHAPTER IV.

THEODORE THE FIRST, BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND THROUGH THE HOLY TRINITY, KING OF CORSICA BY ELECTION.

Scarcely had Theodore set foot in Corsica, and become famous in the world, than the Republic of Genoa issued a manifesto, wherein they animadverted on him very severely; "and the Genoese," says the little German book, "in an edict, describe Theodore very severely."

They describe him very severely indeed, as witness what follows:—

"We, the Doge, the Governors, and Procurators of the Republic of Genoa—

"Whereas we have been informed that a small merchantman, belonging to the English Captain Dick, has disembarked in the port of Aleria in our kingdom of Corsica munitions of war, and a certain notorious, orientally-clad person, who, in an inconceivable manner, was successful in making himself acceptable to the chiefs and the people; whereas this stranger distributed among them arms, powder, and some gold pieces, as well as other things; and whereas also, he, with the promise of more than adequate help, gives them various counsels that disturb the peace, which we are anxious to restore for the sake of the well-being of our subjects in the said kingdom: we have taken means to gain information from trustworthy sources regarding the real character and life of this man. Accordingly, it has become known to us that he is from the province of Westphalia; that he gives himself out as the Baron von Neuhoff; that he pretends to a knowledge of alchymy, of the Kabbala, and of astrology, by whose help he has discovered, he says, many important secrets; further, that he has become notorious as a wandering and vagabond person of little fortune.

"In Corsica he goes by the name of Theodore. In 1729 he went under this name to Paris, where he deserted his child and wife, a lady of Irish extraction whom he married in Spain.

"While travelling through various parts of the world, he has assumed a false name, and denied his birthplace. In London he gave himself out for a German, in Leghorn for an Englishman, in Genoa for a Swede, and he has assumed successively the names of Baron von Naxaer, von Smihmer, von Nissen, and von Smitberg, as appears, along with much beside, from his passes and other authentic writings, dated from various cities and still preserved.

"By so changing his name and residence, he succeeded, by his fraudulent practices, in living at the cost of others; and it is well known that in Spain, about the year 1727, he embezzled the money advanced to him for the purpose of levying a German regiment, and then absconded; and that he also in other ways and in many places has cheated English, French, Germans, and men of other nations.

"Wherever he has practised such tricks, he has laboured to remain concealed. But after his departure he has become notorious on account of his various impositions, as is more especially shown by a letter written by a German cavalier on the 20th day of February of this year.

"That such has been his habitual mode of life, is apparent from the fact that some years ago he borrowed five hundred and fifteen gold pieces from the banker Jaback in Leghorn, with a promise to repay them in Cologne. After the latter saw that he had been deceived, he had him arrested. In order to regain his liberty, he made use of the captain of a vessel whom he entrapped into being surety for him; and after his liberation through the deed drawn up at Leghorn by the notary Gumano, dated Sept. 6. 1735, had become known, he was received into the hospital of the aforesaid town to receive medical aid as a pauper, as he had been very ill during the period of his imprisonment.

"About three months ago he left Leghorn and betook himself to Tunis with letters of introduction, and there he acted the physician and held several secret conferences with the leading men of that infidel land. There, too, he afterwards procured arms and munitions of war with which he next went to Corsica, in company with Christophorus the brother of Bonngiorno a physician of Tunis, three Turks among whom was one Mahomet who had been a slave in the Tuscan galleys, two runaway Livornese—Johann Attimann and Giovanni Bondelli by name, and a Portuguese priest who, at the instance of the mission-fathers in Tunis, and on good grounds, had been compelled to quit that town.

"In such circumstances, and with such indubitable testimonies, and whereas this man has usurped the sovereignty of Corsica, and consequently attempts wickedly to turn aside our subjects from the obedience due to their natural princes; and whereas likewise it is to be feared that a person of such infamous designs is likely to contrive still more confusions and disturbances amongst our people, we have resolved to make everything open and public, and to proclaim, as we now do in the present edict, that this so-called Baron Theodore von Neuhoff, as being an undoubted originator of insurrections, a seducer of the people, and a disturber of the common peace, is guilty of the crime of high treason, and has consequently incurred all the penalties ordained by our laws for that offence.

"Therefore, we forbid all to maintain intercourse or communication with the said person, and we declare all those who give him assistance or in any other way join the party of this man in order still more to disturb our people and incite them to revolt, to be in like manner guilty of high treason, and disturbers of the public peace, and to have incurred the same penalties.

"Given at our Royal Palace on the 9th May 1736.

(Signed) "JOSEPH MARIA."

This manifesto of the Genoese Republic had no effect. Even in their own town of Bastia the people wrote under it—_Evviva Teodoro I. Re di Corsica_; and Theodore, so far from being ashamed of his _parvenu_ character, said with manly humour: "Since the Genoese stigmatize me as an adventurer and charlatan, I shall lose no time in erecting my theatre in Bastia."

He meanwhile issued a manifesto in reply to the Genoese, a very charming production.

"THEODORUS, KING OF CORSICA,—To the Doge and Senate at Genoa his greeting and much patience.

"It has not till now occurred to me that I have committed a sin of omission in not having made known to your Highnesses my intention of removing to Corsica: to speak the truth, I considered such formality unnecessary, thinking that rumour would quickly inform you thereof. I indeed considered it quite superfluous to acquaint you with a trifle like this, as I felt persuaded that your Corsican Commissioner had already told you all about it in a pompous enough narrative.

"Since, however, I now discover that you have been complaining that I kept silence about my intentions, I feel myself constrained, as a dutiful citizen, to announce to you, as one friendly neighbour is in the habit of doing to another, that I have changed my residence. I must therefore take the liberty to observe that I—disgusted with the long and many wanderings which, as you are aware, have occupied my past life—have at last come to the conclusion to select for myself a little place in Corsica; and since this place happens to lie in your vicinity, I take the liberty now to pay you in writing my first visit of ceremony. Your present delegate at Bastia, if he does not deceive you like his predecessor, will be able to assure you of my particular exertions to send to the said town an adequate number of troops in order to pay my respects to you in a way which may give the fullest publicity to our new neighbourhood.

"Inasmuch as, however, the departure of one neighbour from another often gives rise to criticism, or it may be even disputes, on account of the difficulty of settling boundary lines, I will refrain from further compliments and immediately talk with you about our concerns; and I do so all the more willingly that I have heard from various quarters that our new neighbourhood is very disagreeable to you, that you bitterly inveigh against it, and, indeed, in defiance of every law of etiquette, entirely repudiate it. The declaration made by you that your neighbour is a disturber of the common peace, and a seducer of the people, is a most barefaced lie, promulgated as the truth not only in one or two places, but in the face of the whole world, although everybody knows that peace and quiet have been these seven years entirely banished out of Corsica, and that you yourselves were the first to disturb them by your tyrannous and unjust rule, and then by your cruelty to extinguish them entirely. The state-maxims according to which you have acted have, under the pretence of promoting peace, bathed the poor Corsicans in a sea of blood.

"This has been your conduct, and in this way have you chased peace and quiet out of Corsica after it had been with such great difficulty restored by the Emperor. Your wicked and stubborn Pinelli misled the people, and such is the condition in which I find it after having lived here for only a few days. Why is the guilt of your crimes rolled over upon me? In what law is it written that so simple and innocent a neighbour as I am can be guilty of high treason? Treason supposes a friendship broken by the lowest crimes, and those crimes perpetrated under the pretext of friendship. Grant that you were by me grievously injured, what friendship has ever existed between us two? when was I your friend? Heaven prevent me from sinking so low as to be the friend of a nation which has so few friends!

"Further, you would fain with all your might demonstrate that I have committed the crime of high treason against royalty! The very thought of so horrible an offence at first made me tremble. But after having made earnest inquiries regarding the place from which your Majesty comes, I have at last regained my peace of mind, as I could nowhere discover what I was in search of. Tell me, have you inherited this Majesty from your Doges, or pirated it upon the high seas at the time you gave up your city as a place of resort for the Mahometans, and through greed of gain, drew so many Turks to your country that they almost threatened to overwhelm the whole of Christendom? Perhaps you brought this Majesty out of Spain on your back, or it may be that it found its way to your country in a ship from England, which was consigned by an English merchant to one of your countrymen who had just been elected Doge, and which, as you remember, brought a letter the address of which ran thus: 'To Monsieur N.N., Doge of Genoa, and Dealer in General Wares.'

"Tell me, in Heaven's name, whence you have obtained the dignity of a monarchy and the title of royalty, when the fact is that your Republic has, in bygone times, been nothing but a corporation of gain-greedy pirates? For these many centuries have any had a seat in your councils save such as held civic offices? Is it from them that you have got 'your Majesty?' Is not even the name of Duke, which you give to your Doge, an improper title? I am assured that the laws and fundamental articles of your Republic are so constructed that no one can be prince save the law itself, and you consequently, as the organs and administrators of it, improperly assume to yourselves the name of 'sovereign;' and the people are with as little propriety called subjects, since they must rule conjointly with you, as is in fact the case. Although you still remain in peaceful possession of your country, which is much more than you deserve, yet I am not able to see that it must therefore go equally well with you in Corsica, where the people, having their eyes open, stand by their just demands, and feel themselves constrained to throw the yoke from their neck. I, for my part, am firmly resolved to act as reason and love of justice prompt. And because you have proclaimed me through the whole world as a deceiver of all and every nation, I have now proposed to myself to demonstrate the contrary by deed in the case of one nation at least, and that, the oppressed Corsicans. As often as I can deceive you, by undeceiving you as to the estimate you put on my character, I shall do so with more than ordinary pleasure, and give you permission to do the like to me—when you can.

"Meanwhile, rest assured that my creditors will get your property; because those effects of yours, which the Corsicans have legally presented to me, more than suffice for the payment of my debts. Yet it would grieve me much if I should be unable to give a sufficient equivalent to your Republic, for the severity it has exercised towards this kingdom; because no payment seems to be great enough as a requital for this.

"Let me not forget likewise herewith to inform you—what, however, you will I daresay have heard—that my progress has been so triumphant, that I have now as many troops in pay as will suffice to show that I am not only able to live at the expense of others, but clever enough to support a thousand men at my own cost. Whether these get their full pay and rations let those heroic soldiers testify, who keep themselves shut up within the walls of Bastia, because they have not the courage to come out into the open field, in order that one may look at them a little nearer.

"As to other matters, I assure you that, however much you exert yourselves to asperse my good name in the eyes of the world, I do not fear its having the impression which you imagine on the people here; and I do not doubt but that the ducats which they have got will have a much more powerful effect than all the calumnies which you are perpetually inventing against my person. Still, I must beg you to do me a favour, namely, that in the battles likely to take place between my troops and yours, some of your countrymen may show who it is that commands them, because the heroism which true-hearted citizens must cherish for their fatherland cannot fail to be met with in men such as they are. But I believe that I am not likely to obtain the fulfilment of my request; because, what with their bills of exchange, commercial transactions, and trades, they have so much to do that the spirit of valour can find no place among them. On this account I do not at all expect that you will ever acquire honour with your soldiers; because those who should be at their head possess neither time nor bravery enough to lead them into the field, as the men of other high-souled nations do.

"Given in the camp before Bastia, July 10, 1736.

"THEODORUS. "SEBASTIANO CORSA, "Secretary of State and High Chancellor of the Kingdom."

This savagely-satirical document must certainly have deeply wounded the Genoese Republic. But such is the course of events; the proud mistress of the seas was now sunk low—a little nation not far from her gates made her tremble—a foreign adventurer mocked her with impunity.

The conditions of coronation were finally drawn up and signed at Alesani, on the 15th April 1736; Theodore was elected king of Corsica for the period of his natural life; after him the crown was to descend to his male issue, in the order of birth, and, failing male heirs of his body, his daughters were declared capable of succession. If he had no direct heirs, then his nearest relation was to succeed to the throne. But the Corsicans, after all, gave only the title to their king; they preserved their constitution entire.

I have not heard that the new ruler thought of giving the country a queen; perhaps there was no time. He took up his quarters in the Episcopal house at Cervione, and conducted everything in quite a regal style, so far as all outward ceremonies were concerned; surrounded himself with guards and all princely ceremonial, and played the king as well as if he had been born in the purple. We know that he introduced a magnificently sounding court-state, and, as befits a noble king, created counts, marquises, barons, and court officers of the most ostentatious kind. Men and their passions are everywhere the same. One may feel himself a king in the dirty room of a village house, just as well as in the state-rooms of the Louvre, and a Duke of Marmalade or Chocolade, in the court of a negro king, will wear his title with scarcely less pride than a Duke of Alba. In Cervione, as elsewhere, men might be seen pressing eagerly forward to warm themselves in the beams of the new sun, craving title, and desirous of the royal favour. In a dirty mountain-hamlet, in a black and storm-battered house, which was now a royal palace, because so it was called, ambition and intrigue played their part quite as well as in any other court in the world.

One of the acts of Theodore's sovereign prerogative was the institution of a knightly Order—for a king must dispense orders. As I have related elsewhere, it was called the Order of Liberation. The knights looked very magnificent. They wore an azure-blue gown and a cross; in the middle of the cross was a star of enamel and gold, and therein the figure of Justice with a balance in her hand. Under the balance a triangle might be seen, in the middle of which was a T; in the other hand Justice held a sword, under which one could perceive a ball surmounted by a cross. In addition to all this, the arms of the royal family were forced into the corner of the decoration. Every knight of the Order of Liberation had to swear obedience to the king by land and water. Daily, moreover, he had to sing two psalms, the fortieth, "The Lord is our refuge;" and the seventieth, "In thee, O Lord, have I trusted."

The now very rare coins of gold, silver, and copper, issued by Theodore, show on one side his bust with the circumscription: _Theodorus D. G. unanimi consensu electus Rex et Princeps regni Corsici_—on the other side the words: _Prudentia et Industria vincitur Tyrannis_. On other coins a crown upborne by three palm-trees may be seen on one side with the letters T. R., and on the reverse the words _Pro bono publico Corso_.

Theodore gave the necessary amount of court business to the executioner, and had many a man executed because he seemed to him dangerous. He gave particular offence to his subjects by ordering Luccioni de Casacciolo, a distinguished Corsican, to be put to death; and at another time, too, he was reproached with having made an attempt on the virtue of a young Corsican girl, a licence which was not to be found in the conditions of coronation. But for a couple of years the Corsicans clung to him with great fidelity. These poor people had, like the Jews of old, in their despair longed for a king, who should deliver them from the Philistines. On the first occasion of his leaving them, their fidelity continued unshaken; and as a mark of confidence, they issued the following manifesto:—

"We, Don Luis Marchese Giafferi, and Don Giacinto Marchese Paoli, the Prime Minister and the General of his Majesty King Theodore our Sovereign.

"Scarcely had we received the letter of King Theodore I., our Sovereign, when we, in obedience to his commands, summoned to Parliament all the people of the provinces, towns, villages, and forts in the kingdom, in order to hold a General Assembly respecting the regulations and commands of our aforesaid Sovereign. The assembly was general; they came from one side of the hills as well as from the other. All received with satisfaction and submission the commands of his Majesty, towards whom they unanimously renewed the oath of fidelity and obedience, as towards their legitimate and supreme Lord. They have in like manner confirmed his election to be king of Corsica, and have ratified the law which secured it to him and his descendants for ever, as already in the convention of Alesano it was unalterably decreed.

"To the end that all whom it may concern, and, in fine, the world, may know that we will continually preserve an inviolable fidelity to the royal person of Theodore the First, and that we are resolved, as his subjects, to live and die for him, and never to recognise any other Lord except him and his legitimate descendants: we do now again swear on the Holy Evangel to keep the oath of fidelity in every part, in the name of the people here assembled.

"And in order that the present act may have all power and requisite authenticity, we have ordered it to be registered in the Chancery of the kingdom, and have signed it with our own hands, and confirmed it with the seal of the kingdom.—Given in Parliament, Dec. 27, 1737."

Similar declarations were repeated also in the year 1739, when Theodore again landed in Corsica in the midst of great popular rejoicings. On his way back to the island, he narrowly escaped being burnt alive. A German, Captain Wigmanshausen, who commanded his ship, had been bribed by the Genoese to blow it up during the night. Theodore awoke several times with a sensation as if he were being burnt alive. His suspicions were at last roused, and going into the captain's cabin, accompanied by three of his attendants, he found him busy making preparations to set fire to the powder-magazine. King Theodore sentenced him on the spot to be burnt, but afterwards changed the punishment to hanging on the ship's mast; and the sentence was immediately executed. Thus it happened, that Theodore, in his short royal career, among other kingly experiences, nearly fell a victim to an attempt upon his life.

Theodore's further fortunes in Corsica are already known to us. After attempting in vain to regain his island-crown, he returned to England. He left behind him a wonderful life-dream, in which he had once beheld himself on a semi-barbarous island, with a crown upon his head, and a sceptre in his hand—marquises, counts, barons, cavaliers, chancellors, and keepers of the Great Seal, around him:—now, he sat melancholy and a beggar in the London debtor's prison, and, as he thought on the king-romance of his changeful wandering life, complained no less bitterly and with no less suffering, that it should now be his fate to pine away a captive in the hands of English shopkeepers, than Napoleon did at a later period in the English prison of St. Helena. Theodore, too, had been a king; he, too, was fallen greatness, a tragic personage. The Minister Walpole opened a subscription to aid the poor king of the Corsicans, and in this way he was freed from confinement. As a mark of gratitude, Theodore sent him the Great Seal of his kingdom. Like Paoli and Napoleon, he died on the soil of England in the year 1756. He lies buried in Westminster churchyard.

He was a man of wonderful daring, of a singular ingenuity, inexhaustible in plans, more persevering than his singular fortune was steady; and of all bold adventurers we may call him the most praiseworthy, because he employed his head and hand in defence of the freedom of a brave people. The greatest extremes in human life—royalty, and a debtor's prison in which he had scarcely bread to eat, were among his bitter experiences. We Germans will willingly give the poor man a place among the braves of our nation; and I raise this little memorial to my bold countryman, to revive his memory among us.