In the 17th century, however, Genoa entered a period of crisis. In May 1625, a French-Savoian army invaded the republic but was successfully driven out by the combined Spanish and Genoese armies. In 1656–57, a new outburst of plague killed as many as half of the population. In May 1684, as a punishment for Genoese support for Spain, the city was subjected to a French naval bombardment with some 13,000 cannonballs aimed at the city. Genoa was eventually occupied by Austria in 1746 during the War of the Austrian Succession. This episode in the city's history is mainly remembered for the Genoese revolt, precipitated by a legendary boy named Giovan Battista Perasso and nicknamed Balilla who threw a stone at an Austrian official and became a national hero to later generations of Genoese, and Italians in general ("see also" Siege of Genoa (1746), Siege of Genoa (1747), and Siege of Genoa (1800)). Unable to retain its rule in Corsica, where the rebel Corsican Republic was proclaimed in 1755, Genoa was forced by the well-supported rebellion to sell its claim to Corsica to the French, under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles of 1768.