Truly, it is hard for him who stands by this coffin to restrain his emotion, so sad, so moving is the great tragedy of a mother's heart that lies therein enclosed. What an undeserved fate!—and how came it that, in the bosom of this gay, young, unpretending woman, those world-convulsing forces and those men and city-devouring passions were to ripen? CHAPTER VIII. POZZO DI BORGO. The house in the street Napoleon, in which the fugitive Murat lived, has been rebuilt in a style of great magnificence. The arms of the Pozzo di Borgo family, above the door, inform us to whom it belongs. After the Bonapartes, these Pozzi di Borgo are the most famous family in Ajaccio; they are of an old and noble stock, and their name began to be of note long before that of the Bonapartes. In the sixteenth century they distinguished themselves in the service of the Venetians. The Corsican poet, Biagino di Leca, who, in his epic called _Il d'Ornano Marte_, celebrates the achievements of Alfonso Ornano, praises also several of the Pozzi di Borgo, and predicts to their race undying fame. The family has certainly attained a European importance, in the person of Count Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, the friend of Paoli, and in his youth the friend of the young Napoleon; but later, the unrelenting, the truly _Corsican_ foe of the Emperor. He was born in Alata, a village near Ajaccio, on the 8th of March 1768; he studied law in Pisa together with Carlo Bonaparte, and afterwards made himself conspicuous in Corsica, first as revolutionary democrat, then as Paolist. In the year 1791 he was representative for Ajaccio, then Procurator-general and Paoli's right hand. When Corsica allied herself with England, this clever politician was chosen president of the Council of State, under the viceroyship of Elliot. People say that he brought his patron, Paoli, into bad odour with the English, in order to make his own influence supreme. He afterwards left Corsica, made several journeys to London, travelled to Vienna, to Russia, to Constantinople, to Syria; wandering from country to country and court to court, this unwearied foe kept stirring up with ceaseless activity the hatred of the cabinets against Napoleon. Alexander had made him a member of the Russian Privy Council in 1802. Napoleon, in his turn, pursued him with a hatred equally bitter; he longed to have this man within his power—this artful and dreaded antagonist that crossed him at every turn. At the peace of Presburg he demanded that he should be delivered into his hands. Had he obtained this demand, he would have done with Pozzo di Borgo what Charles XII. did with Patkul. Remarkable is this enmity—it is true Corsican Vendetta—Corsican hatred playing a part in universal history. It was Pozzo di Borgo who induced Bernadotte to become the active opponent of Napoleon; it was he who impelled the allies to a speedy march on Paris; it was he who set the King of Rome aside; he who, at