The Isle of Unrest | Page 6

and held that the founder of that marvellous dynasty was the greatest man to walk this earth since the days of direct Divine inspiration.
It was only because Napoleon III was a Bonaparte that Corsica endured his tyranny; perhaps, indeed, tyranny and an iron rule suited better than equity or tolerance a people descended from the most ancient of the fighting races, speaking a tongue wherein occur expressions of hate and strife that are Tuscan, Sicilian, Greek, Spanish, and Arabic.
Now that the emperor's hand was losing its grip on the helm, there were many in Corsica keenly alive to the fact that any disturbance in France would probably lead to anarchy in the turbulent island. There were even some who saw a hidden motive in the appointment of Colonel Gilbert as engineer officer to a fortified place that had no need of his services.
Gilbert himself probably knew that his appointment had been made in pursuance of the emperor's policy of road and rail. For Corsica was to be opened up by a railway, and would have none of it. And though to-day the railway from Bastia to Ajaccio is at last open, the station at Corte remains a fortified place with a loopholed wall around it.
But Colonel Gilbert kept his own counsel. He sat, indeed, on the board of the struggling railway--a gift of the French Government to a department which has never paid its way, has always been an open wound. But he never spoke there, and listened to the fierce speeches of the local members with his idle, easy smile. He seemed to stand aloof from his new neighbours and their insular interests. He was, it appeared, a cultured man, and perhaps found none in this wild island who could understand his thoughts. His attitude towards his surroundings was, in a word, the usual indifferent attitude of the Frenchman in exile, reading only French newspapers, fixing his attention only on France, and awaiting with such patience as he could command the moment to return thither.
"Any news?" asked one of the artillery officers--a sub-lieutenant recently attached to his battery, a penniless possessor of an historic name, who perhaps had dreams of carving his way through to the front again.
The colonel shrugged his shoulders.
"You may have the papers afterwards," he said; for it was not wise to discuss any news in a public place at that time. "See you at the R��union, no doubt."
And he did not speak again except to Cl��ment, who came round to take the opinion of each guest upon the fare provided.
"Passable," said the colonel--"passable, my good Cl��ment. But do you know, I could send you to prison for providing this excellent leveret at this time of year. Are there no game laws, my friend?"
But Clement only laughed and spread out his hands, for Corsica chooses to ignore the game laws. And the colonel, having finished his coffee, buckled on his sword, and went out into the twilight streets of what was once the capital of Corsica. Bastia, indeed, has, like the majority of men and women, its history written on its face. On the high land above the old port stands the citadel, just as the Genoese merchant-adventurers planned it five hundred years ago. Beneath the citadel, and clustered round the port, is the little old Genoese town, no bigger than a village, which served for two hundred and fifty years as capital to an island in constant war, against which it had always to defend itself.
It would seem that some hundred years ago, just before the island became nominally a French possession, Bastia, for some reason or another, took it into its municipal head to grow, and it ran as it were all down the hill to that which is now the new harbour. It built two broad streets of tall Genoese houses, of which one somehow missed fire, and became a slum, while the other, with its great houses but half inhabited, is to-day the Boulevard du Palais, where fashionable Bastia promenades itself--when it is too windy, as it almost always is, to walk on the Place St. Nicholas--where all the shops are, and where the modern European necessities of daily life are not to be bought for love or money.
There are, however, two excellent knife-shops in the Boulevard du Palais, where every description of stiletto may be purchased, where, indeed, the enterprising may buy a knife which will not only go shrewdly into a foe, but come right out on the other side--in front, that is to say, for no true Corsican is so foolish as to stab anywhere but in the back--and, protruding thus, will display some pleasing legend, such as "Vendetta," or "I serve my master," or "Viva Corsica," roughly engraved on the long blade. There is a macaroni warehouse. There