"There will be a truce to-morrow. Letizia, we are winning! Corsica will be free !"
Every Corsican longs for many children. It is a land where an affront is instantly avenged by a dagger thrust; where the vendetta is sacred; where family feuds last from decade to decade and from century to century. The man before us wants many children, to ensure that his race shall persist; and the woman has learned from mother and grandmother that children are tokens of honour. She had become a mother at fifteen; but the baby she has just been nursing was her first boy.
The thought of freedom glows afresh, for the officer is adjutant to Paoli, the leader of the people.
"No longer shall our children be the slaves of France !"
With the coming of spring, despondency prevails. The enemy has landed reinforcements; the children of the island take up arms once more; again the young wife accompanies her husband to the war; this time she carries a child beneath her heart, the child conceived during the storms of the previous autumn.
"Often, in search of news, I would steal forth from our mountain nook to the battle-field; I heard the bullets whistling, but I put my trust in Our Lady " so she would tell the story in later years.
In May, the Corsicans were defeated. There was a terrible retreat through the dense forests and the rugged mountains. Among the multitude of men and the few women, rode Letizia, big with child, carrying her one-year-old boy in her arms, seated on a mule. They reached the coast safely. In June the defeated Paoli, accompanied by a few hundred of his faithful followers, had to flee to Italy. In July Paoli's adjutant, Letizia's husband, with other envoys, capitulated to the conqueror. The insular pride was humbled. But in
August his wife brought the avenger into the world.
She named him Napolione.
Reprint of the wonderful book about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte original published in 1927.