Wanderings in Corsica: Its History and Its Heroes. Vol. 2 of 2 — John Shaqi
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
The reproductive power that characterizes the Corsican families is truly
remarkable. Any one who has directed attention to the history of this
nation will have found, that almost universally the abilities of the
father descend to the son and the son's sons.
It is not with a light heart that I now pass from the tomb of the family
of Libertà, to that field of Calenzana, where lie graves of Schiavitù—of
Slavery. They are the graves of five hundred brave Germans, sons of my
fatherland, who were bought and sold, and who fell there at Calenzana.
I have told how it was in the history of the Corsicans. The Emperor
Charles VI. had sold a corps of German auxiliaries to the Genoese,
and the Genoese despatched them to Corsica. On the 2d of February
1732, the Corsicans under their general, Ceccaldi, attacked the German
troops at Calenzana; these latter were commanded by Camillo Doria
and Des Devins. After a fearful struggle the imperial troops were
beaten, and five hundred Germans lay dead on the field of Calenzana.
The Corsicans buried the strangers who had come to fight against the
liberties of their country, on the beautiful mountain-slope between
Calvi and Calenzana. Beneath a foreign soil rest there the bones of my
unhappy countrymen. Rocks of dark, blood-tinged porphyry stand near.
Myrtles and flowering herbs crown the graves. And still every year at
the Festival of All-Souls, the clergy of Calenzana visit these graves
of their foes—_Camposanto dei Tedeschi_, as people call the field of
Calenzana; and sprinkle with consecrated water the ground where the poor
mercenaries fell. Such is the vengeance the Corsican takes upon the foes
who come to assassinate his independence! I feel as if on me—one of the
few Germans who have ever stood upon the graves of the mercenaries of
Calenzana, and probably the only German who has thus made public mention
of them—devolved the duty of thanking, in the name of my country, the
noble Corsican people for their generous sympathy and wide-hearted
humanity.
The Corsicans gave my countrymen a grave; I will write their epitaph:—
We came, five hundred luckless mercenaries,
Sold by the Emperor to Genoa,
To crush the freedom of the Corsicans—
We came, and paid the penalty in blood;
We expiate the crime in foreign graves.
Call us not guilty, give us tender pity,
The foeman's soil a pitying shelter lends.
Despise not, wanderer, children of a time
So dark; ye who now live, wipe off the stain!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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