Wanderings in Corsica (Vol. 1 of 2): Its History and Its Heroes

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Wanderings in Corsica, Vol. 1 of 2 - Its History and Its Heroes by Ferdinand Gregorovius

It was in the summer of the past year that I went over to the island of Corsica. Its unknown solitudes, and the strange stories I had heard of the country and its inhabitants, tempted me to make the excursion. But I had no intention of entangling myself so deeply in its impracticable labyrinths as I actually did. I fared like the heroes of the fairy-tales, who are allured by a wondrous bird into some mysterious forest, and follow it ever farther and farther into the beautiful wilderness. At last I had wandered over most of the island. The fruit of that summer is the present book, which I now send home to my friends. May it not meet with an unsympathetic reception! It is hoped that at least the history of the Corsicans, and their popular poetry, entitles it to something better.

The history of the Corsicans, all granite like their mountains, and singularly in harmony with their nature, is in itself an independent whole; and is therefore capable of being presented, even briefly, with completeness. It awakens the same interest of which we are sensible in reading the biography of an unusually organized man, and would possess valid claims to our attention even though Corsica could not boast Napoleon as her offspring. But certainly the history of Napoleon's native country ought to contribute its share of data to an accurate estimate of his character; and as the great man is to be viewed as a result of that history, its claims on our careful consideration are the more authentic.

It is not the object of my book to communicate information in the sphere of natural science; this is as much beyond its scope as beyond the abilities of the author. The work has, however, been written with an earnest purpose.

I am under many obligations for literary assistance to the learned Corsican Benedetto Viale, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Rome; and it would be difficult for me to say how helpful various friends were to me in Corsica itself. My especial thanks are, however, due to the exiled Florentine geographer, Francesco Marmocchi, and to Camillo Friess, Archivarius in Ajaccio.