Wanderings in Corsica: Its History and Its Heroes. Vol. 2 of 2Gregorovius, Ferdinand
History
Wanderings in Corsica: Its History and Its Heroes. Vol. 2 of 2
Gregorovius, Ferdinand
Corsica (France) -- Description and travel; Corsica (France) -- History
Such is one shocking instance of the rude popular justice still so
prevalent in Corsica. I shall here relate another. The circumstances
excite our astonishment and admiration, but are at the same time
exceedingly painful. The scene is Alata, the native village of the Pozzo
di Borgo family, a few miles from Ajaccio.
A CORSICAN BRUTUS.
Two grenadiers belonging to a French regiment, forming, as Genoese
auxiliaries, the garrison of Ajaccio, one day deserted. They fled to
the hills of Alata, and kept themselves concealed there in the wild
fastnesses, subsisting on the hospitality of the poor but kind-hearted
shepherds.
Sacred are the laws of hospitality; he who breaks them is before God
and man like Cain.
When the next spring came, it chanced that some officers from the
garrison went a-hunting to the hills of Alata. They came near the
place where the two fugitives lived in concealment. These latter
caught sight of the huntsmen, and cowered behind a rock, lest they
should be recognised and perhaps shot down as game. Quite near them a
young herdsman was watching his goats. The colonel of the regiment, De
Rozières, stepped up to him and inquired if any deserters were concealed
in the mountains thereabouts. The herdsman said that he did not know,
and was embarrassed. De Rozières began to have suspicions. He threatened
the youth with severe punishment—with immediate imprisonment in the
Tower of Ajaccio, if he did not tell the truth.
Joseph was frightened; he said nothing, but he pointed to the spot where
the poor grenadiers lay hiding. The officer did not understand him.
"Speak!" he shouted. Joseph said nothing, but pointed again. The other
officers, who had laid hold of the young man, now left him, and hastened
in the direction where he had pointed, expecting possibly to find some
animal which this stupid mute knew to be lying there.
The two deserters started up and took to flight, but were overtaken and
made fast.
Colonel de Rozières gave Joseph four bright louis-d'ors as informer's
reward. When the young herdsman saw the gold pieces in his own hand,
he forgot, in his childish joy, officers and grenadiers and the whole
world; for he had never seen the like before. He ran into his father's
hut—called father, mother, and brothers together, and behaved like one
out of his wits as he showed them his treasure.
"How didst thou earn this gold, my son Joseph?" asked the old shepherd.
The son narrated what had happened. With every word he uttered, his
father's countenance grew darker; the brothers seemed horror-struck,
and, by the time his story was told, Joseph had grown pale as death.
Sacred are the laws of hospitality; he who breaks them is before God
and man like Cain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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