After the death of Vincentello, the seigniors contended with each other for the title of Count of Corsica; Simon da Mare, Giudice d'Istria, Renuccio da Leca, Paolo della Rocca, were the chief competitors; now one, now another, assuming the designation. In Genoa, the Fregosi and Adorni had split the Republic into two factions; and both families were endeavouring to secure the possession of Corsica. This occasioned new wars and new miseries. No respite, no year of jubilee, ever came for this unhappy country. The entire population was constantly in arms, attacking or defending. The island was revolt, war, conflagration, blood, from one end to the other.
In the year 1443, some of the Corsicans offered the supremacy to Pope Eugene IV., in the hope that the Church might perhaps be able to restrain faction, and restore peace. The Pope sent his plenipotentiary with troops; but this only increased the embroilment. The people assembled themselves to a diet in Morosaglia, and chose a brave and able man, Mariano da Gaggio, as their Lieutenant-general. Mariano first directed his efforts successfully against the degenerate Caporali, expelled them from their castles, destroyed many of these, and declared their office abolished. The Caporali, on their side, called the Genoese Adorno into the island. The people now placed themselves anew under the protection of the Pope; and as the Fregosi had meanwhile gained the upper hand in Genoa, and Nicholas V., a Genoese Pope, favoured them, he put the government of Corsica into the hands of Ludovico Campo Fregoso in the year 1449. In vain the people rose in insurrection under Mariano. To increase the already boundless confusion, Jacob Imbisora, an Arragonese viceroy, appeared, demanding subjection in the name of Arragon.
The despairing people assembled again to a diet at Lago Benedetto, and adopted the fatal resolution of placing themselves under the Bank of St. George of Genoa. This society had been founded in the year 1346 by a company of capitalists, who lent the Republic money, and farmed certain portions of the public revenue as guarantee for its repayment. At the request of the Corsicans, the Genoese Republic ceded the island to this Bank, and the Fregosi renounced their claims, receiving a sum of money in compensation.
The Company of St. George, under the supremacy of the Senate, entered upon the territory thus acquired in the year 1453, as upon an estate from which they were to draw the highest returns possible.
But years elapsed before the Bank succeeded in establishing its authority in the island. The seigniors beyond the mountains, in league with Arragon, made a desperate resistance. The governors of the Bank acted with reckless severity; many heads fell; various nobles went into exile, and collected around Tomasin Fregoso, a man of a restless disposition, whose remembrance of his family's claims upon Corsica had been greatly quickened, since his uncle Lodovico had become Doge. He came, accompanied by the exiles, routed the forces of the Bank, and put himself in possession of a large portion of the island, after the people had proclaimed him Count.
In 1464, Genoa fell into the hands of Francesco Sforza of Milan, and a power with which Corsica had never had anything to do, began to look upon the island as its own. The Corsicans, who preferred all other masters to the Genoese, gladly took the oath of allegiance to the Milanese general, Antonio Cotta, at the diet of Biguglia. But on the same day a slight quarrel again kindled the flames of war over all Corsica. Some peasants of Nebbio had fallen out with certain retainers of the seigniors from beyond the mountains, and blood had been shed. The Milanese commandant forthwith inflicted punishment on the guilty parties. The haughty nobles, considering their seigniorial rights infringed on, immediately mounted their horses and rode off to their homes without saying a word. Preparations for war commenced. To avert a new outbreak, the inhabitants of the Terra del Commune held a diet, named Sambucuccio d'Alando—a descendant of the first Corsican legislator—their vicegerent, and empowered him to use every possible means to establish peace. Sambucuccio's dictatorship dismayed the insurgents; they submitted to him and remained quiet. A second diet despatched him and others as ambassadors to Milan, to lay the state of matters before the Duke, and request the withdrawal of Cotta.
Cotta was replaced by the certainly less judicious Amelia, who occasioned a war that lasted for years. In all these troubles the democratic Terra del Commune appears as an island in the island, surrounded by the seigniories; it remains always united, and true to itself, and represents, it may be said, the Corsican people. For almost two hundred years we have seen nothing decisive happen without a popular Diet (veduta), and we have several times remarked that the people themselves have elected their counts or vicegerents.
The war between the Corsicans and the Milanese was still raging with great fury when Thomas Campo Fregoso again appeared upon the island, trying his fortunes there once more. The Milanese sent him to Milan a prisoner. Singular to relate, he returned from that city in the year 1480, furnished with documents entitling him to have his claims acknowledged. His government, and that of his son Janus, were so cruel, that it was impossible the rule of the Fregoso family could last long, though they had connected themselves by marriage with one of the most influential men in the island, Giampolo da Leca.
The people, meanwhile, chose Renuccio da Leca as their leader, who immediately addressed himself to the Prince of Piombino, Appian IV., and offered to place Corsica under his protection, provided he sent sufficient troops to clear the island of all tyrants. How unhappy the condition of this poor people must have been, seeking help thus on every side, beseeching the aid now of one powerful despot, now of another, adding by foreign tyrants to the number of its own! The Prince of Piombino thought proper to see what could be done in Corsica, more especially as part of Elba already belonged to him. He sent his brother Gherardo di Montagnara with a small army. Gherardo was young, handsome, of attractive manners, and he lived in a style of theatrical splendour. He came sumptuously dressed, followed by a magnificent retinue, with beautiful horses and dogs, with musicians and jugglers. It seemed as if he were going to conquer the island to music. The Corsicans, who had scarcely bread to eat, gazed on him in astonishment, as if he were some supernatural visitant, conducted him to their popular assembly at the Lago Benedetto, and amid great rejoicings, proclaimed him Count of Corsica, in the year 1483. The Fregosi lost courage, and, despairing of their sinking cause, sold their claim to the Genoese Bank for 2000 gold scudi. The Bank now made vigorous preparations for war with Gherardo and Renuccio. Renuccio lost a battle. This frightened the young Prince of Piombino to such a degree, that he quitted the island with all the haste possible, somewhat less theatrically than he had come to it. Piombino desisted from all further attempts.
Two bold men now again rise in succession to oppose Genoa. Giampolo da Leca had, as we have seen, become connected with the Fregosi. Although these nobles had resigned their title in favour of the Bank, they were exceedingly uneasy under the loss of influence they had sustained. Janus, accordingly, without leaving Genoa, incited his relative to revolt against the governor, Matias Fiesco. Giampolo rose. But beaten and hard pressed by the troops of the Bank, he saw himself compelled, after a vain attempt to obtain aid from Florence, to lay down his arms, and to emigrate to Sardinia with wife, child, and friends, in the year 1487.
A year had scarcely passed, when he again appeared at the call of his adherents. A second time unfortunate, he made his escape again to Sardinia. The Genoese now punished the rebels with the greatest severity—with death, banishment, and the confiscation of their property. More and more fierce grew the Corsican hatred towards Genoa. For ten years they nursed its smouldering glow. All this while Giampolo remained in exile, meditating revenge—his watchful eye never lifted from his oppressed and prostrate country. At last he came back. He had neither money nor arms; four Corsicans and six Spaniards were all his troops, and with these he landed. He was beloved by the people, for he was noble, brave, and of great personal beauty. The Corsicans crowded to him from Cinarca, from Vico, from Niolo, and from Morosaglia. He was soon at the head of a body of seven thousand foot and two hundred horse—a force which made the Bank of Genoa tremble for its power. It accordingly despatched to the island Ambrosio Negri, an experienced general. Negri, by intrigue and fair promises, contrived to detach a part of Giampolo's followers, and particularly to draw over to himself Renuccio della Rocca, a nobleman of activity and spirit. Giampolo, with forces sensibly diminished, came to an engagement with the Genoese commander at the Foce al Sorbo, and suffered a defeat, in which his son Orlando was taken prisoner. He concluded a treaty with Negri, the terms of which allowed him to leave the island unmolested. He returned to Sardinia in 1501, with fifty Corsicans, there to waste his life in inconsolable grief.
Giampolo's fall was mainly owing to Renuccio della Rocca. This man, the head of the haughty family of Cinarca, saw that the Genoese Bank had adopted a particular line of policy, and was pursuing it with perseverance; he saw that it was resolved to crush completely and for ever the power of the seigniors, more especially of those whose lands lay beyond the mountains, and that his own turn would come. Convinced of this, he suddenly rose in arms in the year 1502. The contest was short, and the issue favourable for Genoa, whose governor in the island was at that time one of the Doria family. All the Dorias, as governors, distinguished themselves by their energy and by their reckless cruelty, and it was to them alone that Genoa owed her gratitude for the important service of at length crushing the Corsican nobility. Nicolas Doria forced Renuccio to come to terms; and one of the conditions imposed on the Corsican noble was that he and his family were henceforth to reside in Genoa.
Giampolo was, still living in Sardinia, more than all other Corsican patriots a source of continual anxiety to the Genoese, who made several attempts to come to an amicable agreement with him. His son Orlando, who had newly escaped to Rome from his prison in Genoa, sent pressing solicitations from that city to his father to rouse himself from his dumb and prostrate inactivity. But Giampolo continued to maintain his heartbroken silence, and listened as little to the suggestions of his son as to those of the Genoese.
Suddenly Renuccio disappeared from Genoa in the year 1504; he left wife and child in the hands of his enemies, and went secretly to Sardinia to seek an interview with the man whom he had plunged into misfortune. Giampolo refused to see him. He was equally deaf to the entreaties of the Corsicans, who all eagerly awaited his arrival. His own relations had in the meantime murdered his son. The viceroy caught the murderers, and was about to execute them, in order to show a favour to Giampolo. But the generous man forgave them, and begged their liberation.
Renuccio had meanwhile gathered eighteen resolute men about him, and, undeterred by the fate of his children, who had been thrown into a dungeon immediately after his flight, he landed again in Corsica. Nicolas Doria, however, lost no time in attacking him before the insurrection became formidable, and he gained a victory. To daunt Renuccio, he had his eldest son beheaded, and he threatened the youngest with a like fate, but allowed himself to be moved by the boy's entreaties and tears. The unhappy father, defeated at every point, fled to Sardinia, and then to Arragon. Doria took ample revenge on all who had shown him countenance, laid whole districts of the island waste, burned the villages, and dispersed the inhabitants.
Renuccio della Rocca returned in the year 1507. This unyielding man was entirely the reverse of the moody and sorrow-laden Giampolo. He set foot on his native soil with only twenty companions. Another of the Dorias met him this time, Andreas, afterwards the famous Doge, who had served under his cousin Nicolò. The Corsican historian Filippini, a Genoese partisan, admits the cruelties committed by Andreas during this short campaign. He succeeded in speedily crushing the revolt; and compelled Renuccio a second time to accept a safe conduct to Genoa. When the Corsican arrived, the people would have torn him to pieces, had not the French governor carried him off with all speed to his castle.
Three years elapsed. Suddenly Renuccio again showed himself in Corsica. He had escaped from Genoa, and after in vain imploring the aid of the European princes, once more bidding defiance to fortune, he had landed in his native country with eight friends. Some of his former vassals received him in Freto, weeping, deeply moved by the accumulated misfortunes of the man, and his unexampled intrepidity of soul. He spoke to them, and conjured them once more to draw the sword. They were silent, and went away. He remained some days in Freto, in concealment. Nicolo Pinello, a captain of Genoese troops in Ajaccio, accidentally passed by upon his horse. The sight of him proved so intolerable to Renuccio, that he attacked him at night and killed him, took his horse, and now showed himself in public. As soon us his presence in the island became known, the soldiers of Ajaccio were sent out to capture him. Renuccio fled into the hills, hunted like a bandit or wild beast. The peasantry, who were put to the torture by his pursuers, as a means of inducing them to discover his lurking-places, at last resolved to end their own miseries and his life. In the month of May 1511, Renuccio della Rocca was found miserably slain in the hills. He was one of the stoutest hearts of the noble house of Cinarca. "They tell," says the Corsican chronicler, "that Renuccio was true to himself till the last, and that he showed no less heroism in his death than in his life; and this is, of a truth, much to his honour, for a brave man should never lose his nobleness of soul, even when fate brings him to an ignominious end."
Giampolo had meanwhile gone to Rome, to ask the aid of the Pope, but, unsuccessful in his exertions, he died there in the year 1515.
With Giampolo and Renuccio ended the resistance of the Corsican seigniors. The noble families of the island decayed, their strong keeps fell into ruin, and at present we hardly distinguish here and there upon the rocks of Corsica the blackened walls of the castles of Cinarca, Istria, Leca, and Ornano. But Genoa, in crushing one dreaded foe, had raised against herself another far more formidable—the Corsican people.
During this era of the iron rule of the Genoese Bank, many able men emigrated, and sought for themselves name and fame in foreign countries. They entered into military service, and became famous as generals and Condottieri. Some were in the service of the Medici, others in that of the Spozzi; or they were among the Venetians, in Rome, with the Gonzagas, or with the French. Filippini names a long array of them; among the rest, Guglielmo of Casabianca, Baptista of Leca, Bartelemy of Vivario, with the surname of Telamon, Gasparini, Ceccaldi, and Sampiero of Bastelica. Fortune was especially kind to a Corsican of Bastia, named Arsano; turning renegade, he raised himself to be King of Algiers, under the appellation of Lazzaro. This is the more singular, that precisely at this time Corsica was suffering dreadfully from the Moors, and the Bank had surrounded the whole island with a girdle of beacons and watch-towers, and fortified Porto Vecchio on the southern coast.
After the wars with Giampolo and Renuccio, the government of the Bank was at first mild and paternal, and Corsica enjoyed the blessings of order and peace. So says the Corsican chronicler.
The administration of public affairs, on which very slight alteration was made after the Republic took it out of the hands of the Bank, was as follows:—
The Bank sent a governor to Corsica yearly, who resided in Bastia. He brought with him a vicario, or vicegerent, and a doctor of laws. The entire executive was in his hands; he was the highest judicial and military authority. He had his lieutenants (luogotenenti) in Calvi, Algajola, San Fiorenzo, Ajaccio, Bonifazio, Sartena, Vico, Cervione, and Corte. An appeal lay from them to the governor. All these officials were changed once a year, or once in two years. To protect the people from an oppressive exercise of power on their part, a Syndicate had been established, before which a complaint against any particular magistrate could be lodged. If the complaint was found to be well grounded, the procedure of the magistrate concerned could be reversed, and he himself punished with removal from his office. The governor himself was responsible to the Syndics. They were six in number—three from the people, and three from the aristocracy; and might be either Corsicans or Genoese. In particular cases, commissaries came over, charged with the duty of instituting inquiries.
Besides all this, the people exercised the important right of naming the Dodici, or Council of Twelve; and they did this each time a change took place in the highest magistracy. Strictly speaking, twelve were chosen for the districts this side the mountains, six for those beyond. The Dodici represented the people's voice in the deliberations of the governor; and without their consent no law could be enacted, abolished, or modified. One of their number went to Genoa, with the title of Oratore, to act as representative of the Corsican people in the Senate there.
The democratic basis of the constitution of the communes and pievi, with their Fathers of the Community and their podestàs, was not altered, and the popular assembly (veduta or consulta) was still permitted. The governor usually summoned it in Biguglia, when anything of general importance was to be done with the consent of the people.
It is clear that these arrangements were of a democratic nature—that they allowed the people free political movement, and a share in the government; gave them a hold on the protection of the law, and checked the arbitrary tendencies of officials. The Corsican people was, therefore, well entitled to congratulate itself, and consider itself favoured far beyond the other nations of Europe, if such laws were really allowed their due force, and did not become an empty show. How they did become an empty show, and how the Genoese rule passed into an abominable despotism—Genoa, like Venice, committing the fatal error of alienating her foreign provinces by a tyrannous, instead of attaching them to herself by a benevolent treatment—we shall see in the following chapters. For now Corsica brings forward her bravest man, and one of the most remarkable characters of the century, against Genoa.
Sampiero was born in Bastelica, a spot lying above Ajaccio, in one of the wildest regions of the Corsican mountains, not of an ancient family, but of unknown parents. Guglielmo, grandson of Vinciguerra, has been named as his father; others say he was of the family of the Porri.
Like other Corsican youths, Sampiero had betaken himself to the Continent, and foreign service, at an early age. We find him in the service of the Cardinal Hippolyto de Medici, among the Black Bands at Florence; and he was still young when the world was already talking of his bold deeds, noble disposition, and great force of character. He was the sword and shield of the Medici in their struggle with the Pazzi. Thirsting for action and a wider field, he left his position of Condottiere with these princes, and entered the army of Francis I. of France. The king made him colonel of a Corsican regiment which he had formed. Bayard became his friend, and Charles of Bourbon honoured his impetuous bravery and military skill. "On a day of battle," said Bourbon, "the Corsican colonel is worth ten thousand men." Sampiero distinguished himself on many fields and before many fortresses, and his reputation was equally great with friend and foe.
Entirely devoted to the interests of his master, who was now prosecuting the war with Spain, he had still ear and eye for his native island, from which voices reached him now and then that moved him deeply. He came to Corsica in the year 1547, to take a wife from among his own countrywomen. He chose a daughter of one of the oldest houses beyond the mountains—the house of Ornano. Though he was himself without ancestry, Sampiero's fame and well-known manly worth were a patent of nobility which Francesco Ornano could not despise; and he gave him the hand of his only daughter, the beautiful Vannina, the heiress of Ornano.
No sooner did the governor of the Genoese Bank learn the presence of Sampiero—in whom he foreboded an implacable foe—within the bounds of his authority, than, in defiance of all justice, he had him seized and thrown into prison. Francesco Ornano, fearing for his son-in-law's life, hastened to Genoa to the French ambassador. The latter instantly demanded Sampiero's liberation. The demand was complied with; but the insult done him was now for Sampiero another and a personal spur to give relief in action to his long-cherished hatred of Genoa, and ardent wish to free his native country.
The posture of continental affairs, the war between France and Charles V., soon gave him opportunity.
Henry II., husband of Catherine de Medici, deeply involved in Italian politics, in active war with the Emperor, and in alliance with the Turks, who were on the point of sending a fleet into the Western Mediterranean, agreed to the proposal of an enterprise against Corsica. A double end seemed attainable by this: for first, in threatening Corsica, Genoa was menaced; and secondly, as the Republic, since Andreas Doria had freed her from the French yoke, had become the close ally of Charles V., carrying the war into Corsica was carrying it on against the Emperor himself. And besides, the island offered an excellent position in the Mediterranean, and a basis for the operations of the combined French and Turkish fleets. Marshal Thermes, therefore, at that time in Italy, and besieging Siena, received orders to prepare for the conquest of Corsica.
He held a council of war in Castiglione. Sampiero was overjoyed at the turn affairs had taken; all his wishes were centred in the liberation of his country. He represented to Thermes the necessary and important consequences of the undertaking, and it was forthwith set on foot. Its success could not be doubted. The French only needed to land, and the Corsican people would that moment rise in arms. The hatred of the rule of the Genoese merchants had reached, since the fall of Renuccio, the utmost pitch of intensity; and it had its ground not merely in the ineradicable passion of the people for liberty, but in the actual state of affairs in the island. For, as soon as the Bank saw its power secured, it began to rule despotically. The Corsicans had been stripped of all their political rights: they had lost their Syndicate, the Dodici, their old communal magistracies; justice was venal, murder permitted—at least the murderer was protected in Genoa, and furnished with letters-patent for his personal safety. The horrors of the Vendetta, therefore, of the implacable revenge that insists on blood for blood, took root firm and fast. All writers on Corsican history are unanimous, that the demoralization of the courts of justice was the deepest wound which the Bank of Genoa inflicted on Corsica.
Sampiero had sent a Corsican, named Altobello de Gentili, into the island, to ascertain the state of the popular feeling; his letters, and the hope of his coming kindled the wildest joy; the people trembled with eagerness for the arrival of the fleet. Thermes, and Admiral Paulin, whose squadron had effected a junction with the Turkish fleet at Elba, now sailed for Corsica in August 1553. The brave Pietro Strozzi and his company was with them, though not long; Sampiero, the hope of the Corsicans, was with them; Johann Ornano, Rafael Gentili, Altobello, and other exiles, all burning for revenge, and impatient to drench their swords in Genoese blood.
They landed on the Renella near Bastia. Scarcely had Sampiero shown himself on the city walls, which the invaders ascended by means of scaling ladders, when the people threw open the gates. Bastia surrendered. Without delay they proceeded to reduce the other strong towns, and the interior. Paulin anchored before Calvi, the Turk Dragut before Bonifazio, Thermes marched on San Fiorenzo, Sampiero on Corte, the most important of the inland fortresses. Here too he had no sooner shown himself than the gates were opened. The Genoese fled in every direction, the cause of liberty was triumphant throughout the island; only Ajaccio, Bonifazio, and Calvi, trusting to the natural strength of their situation, still held out. Neither Paulin from the sea, nor Sampiero from the land, could make any impression on Calvi. The siege was raised, and Sampiero hastened to Ajaccio. The Genoese under Lamba Doria prepared for an obstinate defence, but the people opened the gates to their deliverer. The houses of the Genoese were plundered; yet, even here, in the case of their country's enemies, the Corsicans showed how sacred in their eyes were the natural laws of generosity and hospitality; many Genoese, fleeing to the villages for an asylum, found shelter with their foes. Francesco Ornano took Lamba Doria into his own house.
Meanwhile the Turk was besieging Bonifazio with furious vigour, ravaging at the same time the entire surrounding country. Dragut was provoked by the heroic resistance of the inhabitants, who showed themselves worthy descendants of those earlier Bonifazians that so bravely held the town against Alfonso of Arragon. Night and day, despite of hunger and weariness, they manned the walls, successfully repelling all attacks, the women showing equal courage with the men. Sampiero came to the assistance of the Turks; the assaults of the besiegers continued without intermission, but the town remained steadfast. The Bonifazians were in hopes of relief, hourly expecting Cattaciolo, one of their fellow-citizens, from Genoa. The messenger came, bearing news of approaching succours; but he fell into the hands of the French. They made a traitor of him, inducing him to carry forged letters into the city, which advised the commandant to give up all hope of being relieved. He accordingly concluded a treaty, and surrendered the unconquered town under the condition that the garrison should be allowed to embark for Genoa with military honours. The brave defenders had scarcely left the protection of their walls, when the barbarous Turk, trampling under foot at once his oath and common humanity, fell upon them, and began to cut them in pieces. Sampiero with difficulty rescued all that it was still possible to rescue. Not content with this revenge, Dragut demanded to be allowed to plunder the city, and, when this was refused, a large sum in compensation, which Thermes could not pay, but promised to pay. Dragut, exasperated, instantly embarked, and set sail for Asia—he had been corrupted by Genoese gold.
After the fall of Bonifazio, Genoa had not a foot of land left in Corsica, except the "ever-faithful" Calvi. No time was to be lost, therefore, if the island was not to be entirely relinquished. The Emperor had promised help, and placed some thousands of Germans and Spaniards at the disposal of the Genoese, and Cosmo de Medici sent an auxiliary corps. A very considerable force had thus been collected, and, to put success beyond question, the leadership of the expedition was intrusted to their most celebrated general, Andreas Doria, while Agostino Spinola was made second in command.
Andreas Doria was at that time in his eighty-sixth year; but the aspect of affairs seemed so critical, that the old man could not but comply with the call of his fellow-citizens. He received the banner of the enterprise in the Cathedral of Genoa, from the senators, protectors of the Bank, the clergy, and the people.
On the 20th November 1553, Doria landed in the Gulf of San Fiorenzo, and, in a short time, the star of Genoa was once more in the ascendant. San Fiorenzo, which had been strongly fortified by Thermes, fell; Bastia surrendered; the French gave way on every side. Sampiero had about this time, in consequence of a quarrel with Thermes, been obliged to proceed to the French court; but after putting his calumniators there to silence, he returned in higher credit than before, and as the alone heart and soul of the war, which the incapable Thermes had proved himself unfit to conduct. He was indefatigable in attack, in resistance, in guerilla warfare. Spinola met with a sharp repulse on the field of Golo, but a wound which Sampiero received in the fight rendering him for some time inactive, the Corsicans suffered a bloody defeat at Morosaglia. Sampiero now gave his wound no more time to heal; he again appeared on the field, and defeated the Spaniards and Germans in the battle of Col di Tenda, in the year 1554.
The war was carried on with unabated fury for five years. Corsica seemed to be certain of the perpetual protection of France, and in general to regard herself as an independently organized section of that kingdom. Francis II. had named Jourdan Orsini his viceroy, and the latter, at a general diet, had, in the name of his king, pronounced Corsica incorporated with France, declaring that it was now for all time impossible to separate the island from the French crown—that the one could be abandoned only with the other. The fate of Corsica seemed, therefore, already linked to the French monarchy, and the island to be detached from the general body of the Italian states, to which it naturally belongs. But scarcely had the king made the solemn announcement above referred to, when the treaty of Cateau Cambresis, in the year 1559, shattered at a single blow all the hopes of the Corsicans.
France concluded a peace with Philip of Spain and his allies, and engaged to surrender Corsica to the Genoese. The French, accordingly, immediately put all the places they had garrisoned into the hands of Genoa, and embarked their troops. A desperate struggle had been maintained for six years to no purpose, diplomacy now lightly gamed away the earnings of that long war's bloody toil, and the Corsican saw himself hurled back into his old misery, and abandoned, defenceless, to Genoese vengeance, by a rag of paper, a pen-and-ink peace. This breach of faith was a crushing blow, and extorted from the country a universal cry of despair, but it was not listened to.
It was now that Sampiero began to show himself in all his greatness; for the man must be admitted to be really great whom adversity does not bend, but who gathers double strength from misfortune. He had quitted Corsica as an outlaw. The peace had taken the sword out of his hand; the island, ravaged and desolate from end to end, could not venture a new struggle on its own resources—a new war needed fresh support from a foreign power. For four years Sampiero wandered over Europe seeking help at its most distant courts; he travelled to France to Catherine, hoping to find her mindful of old services that he had done the house of Medici; he went to Navarre; to the Duke of Florence; to the Fregosi; to one Italian court after another; he sailed to Algiers to Barbarossa; he hastened to Constantinople to the Sultan Soliman. His stern, imposing demeanour, the emphatic sincerity of his speech, his powerful intellect, his glowing patriotism, everywhere commanded admiration and respect, among the barbarians not less than among the Christians; but they comforted him with vain hopes and empty promises.
While Sampiero was thus wandering with unwearied perseverance from court to court, inciting the princes to an enterprise in behalf of Corsica, Genoa had not lost sight of him; Genoa was alarmed to think what might one day be the result of his exertions. It was clearly necessary, by some means or other, to cripple once for all the dreaded arm of Sampiero. Poison and assassination, it is said, had been tried, but had failed. It was resolved to crush his spirit, by bringing his natural affection as a father and a husband into conflict with his passionate love of country. It was resolved to break his heart.
Sampiero's wife Vannina lived in her own house at Marseilles, under the protection of France. She had her youngest son, Francesco, beside her; the elder, Alfonso, was at the court of Catherine. The Genoese surrounded her with their agents and spies. It was their aim, and it was important to them, to allure Sampiero's wife and child to Genoa. To effect this, they employed a certain Michael Angelo Ombrone, who had been tutor to the young sons of Sampiero, and enjoyed his entire confidence; a cunning villain of the name of Agosto Bazzicaluga was another of their tools. Vannina was of a susceptible and credulous nature, proud of the ancient name of Ornano. These Genoese traitors represented to her the fate that necessarily awaited the children of her proscribed husband. Heirs of their father's outlawry, robbed of the seigniory of their renowned ancestors, poor—their very lives not safe, what might they not come to? They pictured to her alarmed imagination these, her beloved children, in the wretchedness of exile, eating the bread of dependence, or what was worse, if they trod in the footsteps of their father, hunted in the mountains, at last captured, and loaded with the chains of galley-slaves.
Vannina was deeply moved—her fidelity began to waver; the thought of going to Genoa grew gradually less foreign to her—less and less repulsive. There, said Ombrone and Bazzicaluga, they will restore to your children the seigniory of Ornano, and your own gentle persuasions will at length succeed in reconciling even Sampiero with the Republic. The poor mother's heart was not proof against this. Vannina was thoroughly a woman; her natural feeling at last spoke with imperious decision, refusing to comprehend or sympathize with the grand, rugged, terrible character of her husband, who only lived because he loved his country, and hated its oppressors; and who nourished with his own being the all-consuming fire of his sole passion—remorselessly flinging in all his other possessions like faggots to feed the flames. Her blinded heart extorted from Vannina the resolution to go to Genoa. One day, she said to herself, we shall all be happy, peaceful, and reconciled.
Sampiero was in Algiers, where the bold renegade Barbarossa, as Sultan of the country, had received him with signal marks of respect, when a ship arrived from Marseilles, and brought the tidings that his wife was on the point of escaping to Genoa with his boy. When Sampiero began to comprehend the possibility of this flight, his first thought was to throw himself instantly into the vessel, and hasten to Marseilles; he became calmer, and bade his noble friend, Antonio of San Fiorenzo, go instead, and prevent the escape—if prevention were still possible. He himself, restraining his sorrow within his innermost heart, remained, negotiated with Barbarossa about an expedition against Genoa, and subsequently sailed for Constantinople, to try what could be effected with the Sultan, not till then proposing to return to Marseilles to ascertain the position of his private affairs.
Antonio of San Fiorenzo had made all possible haste upon his mission. Rushing into Vannina's house, he found it empty and silent. She was away with her child, and Ombrone, and Bazzicaluga, in a Genoese ship, secretly, the day before. Hurriedly Antonio collected friends, Corsicans, armed men, threw himself into a brigantine, and made all sail in the direction which the fugitives ought to have taken. He sighted the Genoese vessel off Antibes, and signalled for her to shorten sail. When Vannina saw that she was pursued, knowing too well who her pursuers were likely to be, in an agony of terror she begged to be put ashore, scarcely knowing what she did. But Antonio reached her as she landed, and took possession of her person in the name of Sampiero and the King of France.
He brought her to the house of the Bishop of Antibes, that the lady, quite prostrate with grief, might enjoy the consolations of religion, and might have a secure asylum in the dwelling of a priest. Horrible thoughts, to which he gave no expression, made this advisable. But the Bishop of Antibes was afraid of the responsibility he might incur, and refusing to run any risk, he gave Vannina into the hands of the Parliament of Aix. The Parliament declared its readiness to take her under its protection, and to permit none, whoever he might be, to do her violence. But Vannina wished nothing of all this, and declined the offer. She was, she said, Sampiero's wife, and whatever sentence her husband might pronounce on her, to that sentence she would submit. The guilty consciousness of her fatal step lay heavy on her heart, and while she wept bitterest tears of repentance, she imposed on herself a noble and silent resignation to the consequences.
And now Sampiero, leaving the Turkish court, where Soliman had for a while wonderingly entertained the famous Corsican, returned to Marseilles, giving himself up to his own personal anxieties. At Marseilles, he found Antonio, who related to him what had occurred, and endeavoured to restrain his friend's gathering wrath. One of Sampiero's relations, Pier Giovanni of Calvi, let fall the imprudent remark that he had long foreseen Vannina's flight. "And you concealed what you foresaw?" cried Sampiero, and stabbed him dead with a single thrust of his dagger. He threw himself on horseback, and rode in furious haste to Aix, where his trembling wife waited for him in the castle of Zaisi. Antonio hurried after him, agonized with the fear that all efforts of his to avert some dreadful catastrophe might be unavailing.
Sampiero waited beneath the windows of the castle till morning. He then went to his wife, and took her away with him to Marseilles. No one could read his silent purposings in his stern face. As he entered his house with her, and saw it standing desolate and empty, the whole significance of the affront—the full consciousness of her treason and its possible results, sank upon his heart; once more the intolerable thought shot through him that it was his own wife who had basely sold herself and his child into the detested hands of his country's enemies; the demon of phrenzy took possession of his soul, and he slew her with his own hand.
Sampiero, says the Corsican historian, loved his wife passionately, but as a Corsican—that is, to the last Vendetta.
He buried his dead in the Church of St. Francis, and did not spare funereal pomp. He then went to show himself at the court of Paris. This occurred in the year 1562.
Sampiero was coldly received at the French court; the courtiers whispered, avoided him, sneered at him from behind their virtuous mask. Sampiero was not the man to be dismayed by courtiers, nor was the court of Catherine de Medici a tribunal before which the fearful deed of one of the most remarkable men of his time could be tried. Catherine and Henry II. forgot that Sampiero had murdered his wife, but they would do no more for Corsica than willingly look on while it was freed by the exertions of others.
Now that he had done all that was possible as a diplomatist, and saw no prospect of foreign aid, Sampiero fell back upon himself, and resolved to trust to his own and his people's energies. He accordingly wrote to his friends in Corsica that he would come to free his country or die. "It lies with us now," he said, "to make a last effort to attain the happiness and glory of complete freedom. We have applied to the cabinets of France, of Navarre, and of Constantinople; but if we do not take up arms till the day when the aid of France or Tuscany shall be with us in the fight, there is a long period of oppression yet in store for our country. And at any rate, would a national independence obtained with the assistance of foreigners be a prize worth contending for? Did the Greeks seek help of their neighbours to rescue their independence from the yoke of the Persians? The Italian Republics are recent examples of what the strong will of a people can do, combined with the love of country. Doria could free his native city from the oppression of a tyrannous aristocracy; shall we forbear to rise till the soldiers of the King of Navarre come to fight in our ranks?"
On the 12th of June 1564, Sampiero landed in the Gulf of Valinco, with a band of twenty Corsicans, and five-and-twenty Frenchmen. He sank the galley which had brought him. When he was asked why he had done so, and where he would find refuge if the Genoese were now suddenly to attack him, he answered, "In my sword!" He assaulted the castle of Istria with this handful of men, took it, and marched rapidly upon Corte. The Genoese drew out to meet him before the walls of the town, with a much superior force, as Sampiero had still not above a hundred men. But such was the terror inspired by his mere name, that he no sooner appeared in sight than they fled without drawing sword. Corte opened its gates, and Sampiero had thus gained one important position. The Terra del Commune immediately made common cause with him.
Sampiero now advanced on Vescovato, the richest district of the island, on the slopes of the mountains where they sink towards the beautiful plain of Mariana. The people of Vescovato assembled at his approach, alarmed for the safety of their harvest, which was threatened by this new storm of war. They were urgently counselled by the Archdeacon Filippini, the Corsican historian, to remain neutral, and take no notice of Sampiero, whatever he might do. When Sampiero entered Vescovato, he found it ominously quiet, and the people all within their houses; at last, yielding to curiosity or sympathy, they came out. Sampiero spoke to them, accusing them, as he justly might, of a want of patriotism. His words made a deep impression. Offers of entertainment in some of their houses were made; but Sampiero punished the inhabitants of Vescovato with his contempt, and passed the night in the open air.
The place became nevertheless the scene of a bloody battle. Nicolas Negri led his Genoese against it, as a position held by Sampiero. It was a murderous struggle; the more so that as the number engaged on both sides was comparatively small, it was mainly a series of single combats. Corsicans, too, were here fighting against Corsicans—for a company of the islanders had remained in the service of Genoa. These fell back, however, when Sampiero upbraided them for fighting against their country. Victory was inclining to the side of Genoa—for Bruschino, one of the bravest of the Corsican captains, had fallen, when Sampiero, rallying his men for one last effort, succeeded in finally repulsing the Genoese, who fled in disorder towards Bastia.
The victory of Vescovato brought new additions to the forces of Sampiero, and another at Caccia, in which Nicolas Negri was among the killed, spread the insurrection through the whole interior. Sampiero now hoped to be assisted in earnest by Tuscany, and even by the Turks; for in winning battle after battle over the Spaniards and Genoese, with such inconsiderable means at his command, he had shown what Corsican patriotism might do if it were supported.
On the death of Negri, the Genoese without delay despatched their best general to the island, in the person of Stephen Doria, whose bravery, skill, and unscrupulous severity rendered him worthy of the name. He was at the head of a force of four thousand German and Italian mercenaries. The war broke out, therefore, with fresh fury. The Corsicans suffered some reverses; but the Genoese, weakened by important defeats, were once more thrown back upon Bastia. Doria had made an attack on Bastelica, Sampiero's birthplace, had laid it in ashes, and made the patriot's house level with the ground. Houses and property were little to the man whose own hand had sacrificed his wife to his country; noticeable, however, is this Genoese policy of constantly bringing the patriotism of the Corsicans into tragic conflict with their personal affections. What they tried in vain with Sampiero, succeeded with Campocasso—a man of unusual heroism, of an influential family of old Caporali. His mother had been seized and placed in confinement. Her son did not hesitate a moment—he threw away his sword, and hastened into the Genoese camp to save his mother from the torture. He left it again when they proposed to him to become the murderer of Sampiero, and remained quiet at home. Powerful friends were becoming fewer and fewer round Sampiero; now that Bruschino had fallen, Campocasso gone over to the enemy, and the brave Napoleon of Santa Lucia, the first of his name who distinguished himself as a military leader, had suffered a severe defeat.
If the whole hatred of the Corsicans and Genoese could be put into two words, these two are Sampiero and Doria. Both names, suggestive of the deadliest personal feud, at the same time completely represent their respective nationalities. Stephen Doria exceeded all his predecessors in cruelty. He had sworn to annihilate the Corsican people. His openly expressed opinions are these:—"When the Athenians became masters of the principal town in Melos, after it had held out for seven months, they put all the inhabitants above fourteen years of age to death, and sent a colony to people the place anew, and keep it in obedience. Why do we not imitate this example? Is it because the Corsicans deserve punishment less than those ancient rebels? The Athenians saw in these terrible chastisements the means of conquering the Peloponnese, the whole of Greece, Africa, and Sicily. By putting all their enemies to the sword, they restored the reputation and terror of their arms. It will be said that this procedure is contrary to the law of nations, to humanity, to the progress of civilisation. What does it matter, provided we only make ourselves feared?—that is all I ask. I care more for what Genoa says than for the judgment of posterity, which has no terrors for me. This empty word posterity checks none but the weak and irresolute. Our interest is to extend on every side the circle of conquered country, and to take from the insurgents everything that can support a war. Now, I see but two ways of doing this—first, by destroying the crops, and secondly, by burning the villages, and pulling down the towers in which they fortify themselves when they dare not venture into the field."
The advice of Doria sufficiently shows how fierce the Genoese hatred of this indomitable people had become, and indicates but too plainly the unspeakable miseries the Corsicans had to endure. Stephen Doria laid half the island desolate with fire and sword; and Sampiero was still unconquered. The Corsican patriot had held an assembly of the people in Bozio to strengthen the general cause by the adoption of suitable measures, to regulate anew the council of the Dodici and the other popular magistracies, and to organize, if possible, an insurrection of the entire people. Sampiero was not a mere soldier, he was a far-seeing statesman. He wished to give his country, with its independence, a free republican constitution, founded on the ancient enactments of Sambucuccio of Alando. He wished to draw, from the situation of the island, from its forests and its products in general, such advantages as might enable it to become a naval power; he wished to make Corsica, in alliance with France, powerful and formidable, as Rhodes and Tyre had once been. Sampiero did not aim at the title of Count of Corsica; he was the first who was called Father of his country. The times of the seigniors were past.
He sent messengers to the continental courts, particularly to France, asking assistance; but the Corsicans were left to their fate. Antonio Padovano returned from France empty-handed; he only brought Sampiero's young son Alfonso, ten thousand dollars in money, and thirteen standards with the inscription—Pugna pro patria. This was, nevertheless, enough to raise the spirits of the Corsicans; and the standards, which Sampiero divided among the captains, became the occasion of envy and dangerous heartburnings.
Here are two letters of Sampiero's.
To Catherine of France.—"Our affairs have hitherto been prosperous. I can assure your Majesty, that unless the enemy had received both secret and open help from the Catholic King of Spain, at first twenty-two galleys and four ships, with a great number of Spaniards, we should have reduced them to such extremity, that by this time they would have been no longer able to maintain a footing in the island. Nevertheless, and come what will, we will never abandon the resolution we have taken, to die sooner than acknowledge in any way whatever the supremacy of the Republic. I pray of your Majesty, therefore, in these circumstances, not to forget my devotion to your person, and that of my country to France. If his Catholic Majesty shows himself so friendly to the Genoese, who are, even without him, so formidable to us—a people forsaken by all the world—will your Majesty suffer us to be destroyed by our cruel foes?"
To the Duke of Parma.—"Although we should become tributary to the Ottoman Porte, and thus run the risk of offending all the Princes of Christendom, nevertheless this is our unalterable resolution—A hundred times rather the Turks than the supremacy of the Republic. France herself has not respected the treaty, which, as they said, was to be the guarantee of our rights and the end of our miseries. If I take the liberty of troubling you with the affairs of the island, it is that your Highness may, if need be, take our part at the court of Rome against the attacks of our enemies. I desire that my words may at least remain a solemn protest against the indifference of the Catholic Princes, and an appeal to the Divine justice."
Once more ambassadors set out for France, five in number; but the Genoese intercepted them off the coast. Three leapt into the sea to save themselves by swimming, one of whom was drowned; the two who were captured were first put to the torture, and then executed. The war assumed the frightful character of a merciless Vendetta on both sides. Doria, however, effected nothing. Sampiero defeated him again and again; and at last, in the passes of Luminanda, almost annihilated the Genoese forces. It required the utmost exertion of Doria's great skill and personal bravery to extricate himself on the latter occasion. He arrived in San Fiorenzo, bleeding, exhausted, and in despair, and soon after left the island. The Republic replaced him by Vivaldi, and afterwards by the artful and intriguing Fornari; but the Genoese had lost all hope of crushing Sampiero by war and open force. Against this man, who had come to the island as an outlaw with a few outlawed followers, they had gradually sent their whole force into the field—their own and a Spanish fleet, their mercenaries, Germans, fifteen thousand Spaniards, their greatest generals, Doria, Centurione, and Spinola; yet, the same Genoa that had conquered Pisa and Venice had proved unable to subdue a poor people, forsaken by the whole world, who came into the ranks of battle starving, in rags, unshod, badly armed, and who, when they returned home, found nothing but the ashes of their villages.
It was therefore decided that Sampiero must be murdered.
Dissensions, fomented by the Genoese, had long existed between him and the descendants of the old seigniors. Some, like Hercules of Istria, had deserted him from lust of Genoese gold, or because their pride revolted at the thought of obeying a man who had risen from the dust. Others had a Vendetta with Sampiero; they had a debt of blood to exact from him. These were the nobles of the Ornano family, three brothers—Antonio, Francesco, and Michael Angelo, cousins of Vannina. Genoa had won them with gold, and the promise of the seigniory of Ornano, of which Vannina's children were the rightful heirs. The Ornanos, again, gained the monk Ambrosius of Bastelica, and Sampiero's own servant Vittolo, a trusted follower, with whose help it was agreed to take Sampiero in an ambuscade. The governor, Fornari, approved of the plan, and committed its execution to Rafael Giustiniani.
Sampiero was in Vico when the monk brought him forged letters, urgently requesting him to come to Rocca, where a rebellion, it was said, had broken out against the popular cause. Sampiero instantly despatched Vittolo with twenty horse to Cavro, and himself followed soon after. He was accompanied by his son Alfonso, Andrea de' Gentili, Antonio Pietro of Corte, and Battista da Pietra. Vittolo, in the meantime, instructed the brothers Ornano, and Giustiniani, that Sampiero would pass through the defile of Cavro; on receiving which intelligence, they immediately set out for the spot indicated with a considerable force of foot and horse, and formed the ambuscade. Sampiero and his little band were riding unsuspectingly through the pass, when they suddenly found themselves assailed on every side, and the defile swarming with armed men. He saw that his hour was come. Yielding now to those impulses of natural affection which he had once so signally disowned, he ordered his son Alfonso to leave him, to flee, and save himself for his country. The son obeyed, and escaped. Most of his friends had fallen bravely fighting by his side, when Sampiero rushed into the mêlée, to hew his way through if it were possible. The day was just dawning. The three Ornanos had kept their eyes constantly upon him, at first afraid to assail the terrible man; but at length, spurred on by revenge, they pressed in upon him, some Genoese soldiery at their back. Sampiero fought desperately. He had thrown himself upon Antonio Ornano, and wounded him with a pistol-shot in the throat. But his carbine missed fire; Vittolo, in loading it, had put in the bullet first. Sampiero's face was streaming with blood; freeing his eyes from it with his left, his right hand still grasped his sword, and kept all at bay, when Vittolo, from behind, shot him through the back, and he fell. The Ornanos now rushed in upon the dying man, and finished their work. They cut off Sampiero's head, and carried it to the Governor.
It was on the 17th of January in the year 1567 that Sampiero fell. He had reached his sixty-ninth year, his vigour unimpaired by age or military toil. The stern grandeur of his soul, and his pure and heroic patriotism, have made his name immortal. He was great in the field, inexhaustible in council; owing all to his own extraordinary nature, without ancestry, he inherited nothing from fortune, which usually favours the parvenu, but from misfortune everything, and he yielded, like Viriathus, only to the assassin. He has shown, by his elevating example, what a noble man can do, when he remains unyieldingly true to a great passion.
Sampiero was above the middle height, of proud and martial bearing, dark and stern, with black curly hair and beard. His eye was piercing, his words few, firm, and impressive. Though a son of nature, and without education, he possessed acute perceptions and unerring judgment. His friends accused him of seeking the sovereignty of his native island; he sought only its freedom. He lived as simply as a shepherd, wore the woollen blouse of his country, and slept on the naked earth. He had lived at the most luxurious courts of his time, at those of Florence and Versailles, but he had contracted none of their hollowness of principle, or corrupt morality. The rugged patriot could murder his wife because she had betrayed herself and her child to her country's enemies, but he knew nothing of those crimes that pervert nature, and those principles that would refine the vile abuse into a philosophy of life. He was simple, rugged, and grand, headlong and terrible in anger, a whole man, and fashioned in the mightiest mould of primitive nature.
At the news of Sampiero's fall, the bells were rung in Genoa, and the city was illuminated. The murderers quarrelled disgracefully over their Judas-hire; that of Vittolo amounted to one hundred and fifty gold scudi.
Sorrow and dismay fell upon the Corsican nation; its father was slain. The people assembled in Orezza; three thousand armed men, many weeping, all profoundly sad, filled the square before the church. Leonardo of Casanova, Sampiero's friend and fellow-soldier, broke the silence. He was about to pronounce the patriot's funeral oration.
This man was at the time labouring under the severest personal affliction. Unheard-of misfortunes had overtaken him. He had shortly before escaped from prison, by the aid of a heroic youth, his own son. Leonardo had been made prisoner by the Genoese, who had thrown him into a dungeon in Bastia. His son, Antonio, meditated plans of rescue night and day. Disguised in the dress of the woman who brought the prisoners their food, he made his way into his father's cell. He conjured his father to make his escape and leave him behind; though they should put him to death, he said, he was but a stripling, and his death would do him honour, while it preserved his father's arm and wisdom for his country; their duty as patriots pointed out this course. Long and terrible was the struggle in the father's mind. At last he saw that he ought to do as his son had said; he tore himself from his arms, and, wrapped in the female dress, passed safely out. When the youth was discovered, he gave himself up without resistance, proud and happy. They led him to the governor, and, at his command, he was hung from the window of his father's castle of Fiziani.
Leonardo, the generous victim's fate written in stern characters on his face, rose now like a prophet before the assembled people—
"Slaves weep," he said, "free men avenge themselves! No weak-spirited lamenting! Our mountains should re-echo nothing but shouts of war. Let us show, by the vigour of our measures, that he is not all dead. Has he not left us the example of his life? The Fornari and the Vittoli cannot rob us of that. It has escaped their ambuscades and their treacherous balls. Why did he cry to his son, Save thyself? Doubtless that there might still remain a hero for our country, a head for our soldiers, a dreaded foe for the Genoese. Yes, countrymen, Sampiero has left to his murderers the stain of his death, and to the young Alfonso the duty of vengeance. Let us aid in accomplishing the noble work. Close the ranks! The spirit of the father returns to us in the son. I know the youth. He is worthy of the name he bears, and of the country's confidence. He has nothing of youth but its glow—the ripeness of the judgment is sometimes in advance of the time of life, and a ripe judgment is a gift that Heaven has not denied him. He has long shared the dangers and toils of his father. All the world knows he is master of the rough craft of arms. Our soldiers are eager to march under his command, and you may be sure their instinct is true—it never deceives them. The masses guess their men. They are seldom mistaken in their choice of those whom they think fit to lead them. And, moreover, what higher tribute could you pay to the memory of Sampiero, than to choose his son? Those who hear me have set their hearts too high to be within the reach of fear.
"Are there men among us base enough to prefer the shameful security of slavery to the storms and dangers of freedom? Let them go, and separate themselves from the rest of the people. But let them leave us their names. When we have engraved these names on a pillar of eternal shame, which we shall erect on the spot where Sampiero was assassinated, we will send their owners off, covered with disgrace, to keep company with Vittolo and Angelo at the court of Fornari. But they are fools not to know that arms and battle, which are the honourable resource of free and brave men, are also the safest recourse of the weak. If they still hesitate, let me say to them—On the one side stand renown for our standard, liberty for ourselves, independence for our country; on the other, the galleys, infamy, contempt, and all the other miseries of slavery. Choose!"
After this speech of Leonardo's, the people elected by acclamation Alfonso d'Ornano to be Chief and General of the Corsicans. Alfonso was seventeen years old, but he was Sampiero's son. The Corsicans thus, far from being broken and cast down by the death of Sampiero, as their enemies had hoped, set up a stripling against the proud Republic of Genoa, mocking the veteran Genoese generals, and the name of Doria; and for two years the youth, victorious in numerous conflicts, held the Genoese at bay.
Meanwhile the long war had exhausted both sides. Genoa was desirous of peace; the island, at that time divided by the factions of the Rossi and Negri, was critically situated, and, like its enemy, disposed for a cessation of hostilities. The Republic, which had already, in 1561, resumed Corsica from the Bank of St. George, now recalled the detested Fornari, and sent George Doria to the island—the only man of the name of whom the Corsicans have preserved a grateful memory. The first measure of this wise and temperate nobleman was to proclaim a general amnesty. Many districts tendered allegiance; many captains laid down their arms. The Bishop of Sagona succeeded in persuading even the young Alfonso to a treaty, which was concluded between him and Genoa on the following terms:—1. Complete amnesty for Alfonso and his adherents. 2. Liberty for them and their families to embark for the Continent. 3. Liberty to dispose of their property by sale, or by leaving it in trust. 4. Restoration of the seigniory of Ornano to Alfonso. 5. Assignment of the Pieve Vico to the partisans of Alfonso till their embarkation. 6. A space of sixty days for the settlement of their affairs. 7. Liberty for each man to take a horse and some dogs with him. 8. Cancelling of the liabilities of those who were debtors to the public treasury; for all others, five years' grace, in consideration of the great distress prevailing in the country. 9. Liberation of certain persons then in confinement.
Alfonso left his native island with three hundred companions in the year 1569; he went to France, where he was honourably received by King Charles IX., who made him colonel of the Corsican regiment he was at that time forming. Many Corsicans went to Venice, great numbers took service with the Pope, who organized from them the famous Corsican Guard of the Eight Hundred.