Itinerary through Corsica | Page 5

of a work on the island in French and English.
In the Cours Napoleon is a small French mission, whose worthy pastor,
besides conducting the regular Sunday services, gives two lectures
(conferences) every week, which are attended by from 80 to 100
people.
The houses in Ajaccio, as well as those throughout the island, are
generally built in large square blocks of from 3 to 5 stories, each story
forming a separate dwelling.
[Map: Ajaccio]
[Headnote: NAPOLEON'S BIRTHPLACE.]
The mole at which passengers land from the steamers is at the foot of
the Place du Marché. In the centre of this "Place" is a fountain
ornamented with lions and a white marble statue of Napoleon I. by
Laboureur. To the left of the statue is the Hotel de Ville, the markets,
and the commencement of the Rue Fesch, in which is the edifice
containing the public library, the museum, and the memorial chapel (p.
5); while to the right is the Rue Napoleon, in which the first opening
right leads into the Place Letitia. A little beyond this opening is No. 17,
the house of the Pozzo di Borgo family, of whom Charles André,
1768-1842, was the great upholder of Paoli and the bitter enemy of

Napoleon I. Napoleon's house, though not equal to that of the Borgo
family, was one of the best in Ajaccio. It is well built, of three stories of
six windows each, and all the rooms have a more or less handsome
marble chimney-piece. Over the door is inscribed on white marble
"Napoleon est né dans cette maison le XV Aovt MDCCLXIX". A good
staircase, bordered by a wrought-iron railing, leads to the top. The
rooms shown are on the first floor. The first is the parlour, with a small
table, a few chairs, and a piano said to have belonged to Mme. Letitia.
Then after having passed through a small chamber we enter the room in
which Napoleon was born, into which Madame was brought hurriedly
from the church in the sedan chair kept in the end room. Over the
chimney-piece are portraits of the father and mother. Then follows the
dining-room, and after it the drawing-room, with inlaid wood floor and
six windows on both sides. The floors of all the other rooms are of
glazed tiles. In the next room is the sedan chair. Fee for party 1 fr.
This now silent and empty house was once enlivened and brightened by
the fair Letitia and her large family of children, just like other men's
children; schoolboys toiling at their Plutarch or Cæsar, and their three
young sisters growing up careless and rather wild, like their neighbours'
daughters, in the half-barbarous island town. There is Joseph, the eldest,
then Napoleon, the second born, then Lucien, Louis, and Jerome; then
Caroline, Eliza, and Pauline, the children of a notary of moderate
income, who is incessantly and vainly carrying on law-suits with the
Jesuits of Ajaccio to gain a contested estate which is necessary to his
numerous family. Their future fills him with anxiety; what will they be
in the world and how will they secure a comfortable subsistence? And
behold! these same children, one after the other, take to themselves the
mightiest crowns of the earth--tear them from the heads of the most
unapproachable kings of Europe and wear them in the sight of all the
world; and they, the sons of an Ajaccio lawyer, cause themselves to be
embraced as brothers and brothers-in-law by emperors and kings.
Napoleon is European Emperor; Joseph King of Spain; Louis King of
Holland; Jerome King of Westphalia; Caroline Queen of Naples and
Pauline and Eliza Princesses of Italy. In 1793, after the flight of
Madame Letitia and her children to her country residence, the Casone,
the house was pillaged by the Corsicans opposed to the French

Republic.
[Headnote: CATHEDRAL.]
Near the Place Letitia is the cathedral built in the 16th century by Pope
Gregory. It contains the font at which Napoleon I. was baptized on the
21st July 1771.
[Headnote: MEMORIAL CHAPEL.]
In the Rue Fesch is the College founded in 1822. In one wing of the
edifice is the public library, with 33,000 volumes, founded by Lucien
Bonaparte, and the museum and picture gallery, with 900 paintings,
mostly copies; and in the other the memorial chapel built by Napoleon
III., lined with beautiful marble. In the crypt under the transept, left
hand, is the tomb of Marie Letitia Ramolino, died at Rome in 1836; and
right hand, that of Napoleon's uncle, Cardinal Fesch, died at Rome in
1839. Both bodies were brought to this, their present resting-place, in
1851. There are, besides, the tombs of Prince Charles and of Zenaida
his daughter. Napoleon's father died in 1785 and is buried at
Montpellier. Madame was only 35 at his