Somewhere about the year 1000 a number of feudal lords, or “signori,” leagued themselves together and set up a capital at CortÉ, the centre of the island, and in the very heart of the mountains. What the place looked like in those days we have no means of knowing, for in this, as in most of the other towns of the island, there is nothing belonging to the remote past to remind us of very early events in the history of the land. CortÉ is lonely enough still, and you may wander for days in the great granite hills without meeting a single human being. The circle of gorges, the ravines, and the mountains present to us the same features that they presented to the feudal lords, and account for the choice of the position of the feudal capital, and for the part which the town has played in the military history of Corsica. CortÉ is a proud and heroic town. Around it have gathered numerous stories of gallant attacks upon the grim and frowning citadel that has been both won and lost by Corsicans, Genoese, and French. The men of this proud hill-fortress have throughout the centuries ever been faithful to their country, and willing to shed their blood for it. They are worthy descendants of a people that honours only the warriors that have led them to the field, a people whose only literature consists of wild songs of war, and chants that call aloud for vengeance on oppressors. The women have at all times been as true and as valiant as the men. They are, as they have always been, noted for their beauty. At the time when the hand of the Genoese lay heavy upon their land they vowed never to marry, that they might not give birth to slaves.

CortÉ is connected by rail with Ajaccio, and there are probably few visitors to the island who do not, during their stay, forsake the orange-trees and the palms upon the coast to visit the barren hills where the feudal capital once stood. Preferring the road to the rail, I made the journey from the sea to the mountains by bicycle, walking the greater part of the way and freewheeling the rest, ascending and descending continually the steep granite waves which rise and fall from one end of the island to the other.

At the foot of the rock on which the modern town stands it is necessary to dismount from the bicycle. The houses and the churches are far above on the crest of a great billow of rock. CortÉ can hardly be said to stand on the side of the mountain. It does not stand; it floats. Towering above all on a slightly higher crest of granite, is the citadel, which was erected about the fifteenth century. Here and there amongst the tall houses are dotted the slender campanili which are common in most of the towns of Southern Europe. As seen in the distance, the appearance of the citadel-crowned breaker, with the smaller undulations of white and grey houses, is eminently picturesque. On closer acquaintance the most noticeable thing is dirt. In a general way it may be quite truthfully said that the more attractive a Corsican town may appear in the distance, the less comfortable it proves when you wish to stay there.

We ascended on foot the steep and narrow streets, assailed from time to time by crowds of stone-throwing children. As we returned soft smiles for hard stones, we soon became good friends with the little ones; in fact, their friendship for us proved so strong that it became a nuisance. The moment a camera was erected all the youngsters crowded in front of it, and insisted on forming a part of the picture. In Siam, as soon as the natives see a camera they run away; in certain parts of Holland the children will allow themselves to be photographed if they are paid for it; but in Corsica everyone wants to be photographed, and the sight of a Kodak will produce a crowd at any hour of the day. To escape the troop of followers, we went into the church. While we were pretending to be solemnly gazing at the altar, the children marched in after us by the dozen and played at leap-frog over the chairs, while the breezes wafted into the sacred building odours that overpowered the incense and nearly killed the worshippers.

Finding that it was quite impossible to escape the crowd, we went outside into the open air again and began to work. Our first object of attack was the Maison Gaffori, in front of which stands a statue of Gaffori, one of the many Corsican heroes who headed revolts against the Genoese. On the side of the pedestal that supports the statue there are a number of carvings, one of which recalls a story of the bravery of the General’s wife.

In the year 1750 this house was besieged by the Genoese. Gaffori was absent, and the defence of the home rested entirely upon his wife and servants. When the servants began to get frightened, and to talk of surrender, their mistress went into a lower room, got a barrel of powder and a torch, and threatened to blow herself and all the rest of them to pieces if they left off firing. The servants, under the circumstances, wisely continued their resistance, and held the Genoese in check until their master returned and drove the enemy away. It was in this house that Joseph Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon, and afterwards King of Spain, was born.

We escaped the crowd at last, and tried to find our way to the citadel. We wandered through winding streets and crooked alleys, and arrived as often as not at the end of a blind passage, blocked with manure-heaps and piles of disgusting refuse. Finally, guided by two or three small children, we clambered to the summit of a rock, from which the citadel could be seen on the other side of a deep but narrow valley. We were on the edge of a precipice unguarded by wall or railing, and on the edge of which the children skipped about as carelessly and as safely as their own mountain-goats. We turned our faces away from the children and their perilous amusements, in order to view the great citadel crowning a rock that rises up 400 feet sheer above the river that foams at its base. There were men inside the fort, but we could not see them. Doubtless there were guns too, but they, like the soldiers, were invisible. Not such was the scene in 1746, when Gaffori made up his mind to recapture the fort from the Genoese, who were then in possession of this mountain stronghold. There was noise enough then, as the brave General directed a steady and vigorous assault upon the walls. So skilful and so persistent was the attack that the Genoese commander began to have grave doubts as to his ability to hold the place. It so happened that amongst the prisoners within the fort was Gaffori’s youngest son. The Genoese leader ordered the boy to be brought out and bound to the outside of the walls, thinking that this would certainly put an end to the firing. For a moment his plan succeeded: the guns were silent; the Corsicans gazed in terror, first at the boy, and then at their horrified leader. But the period of peace passed quickly away. Gaffori, fear and resolution painfully mingled in his breast, shrieked the command, “Fire!” Out burst the artillery with redoubled fury. The fort was captured, and Gaffori was rewarded, not only with the possession of an ancient fort, but with the yet dearer treasure of a living son.

Gaffori died, as so many of his countrymen have died, by the hand of an assassin, and the assassin was a man of this very town. But the inhabitants of CortÉ marked their horror of the deed by destroying the house of the murderer, and the spot where that house once stood remains bare unto this day.