Weekly American. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1858-1858, 1858-01-16
CORSICA.

We spoke in our last, of work translated
by the Hon. e. Joy Morris, entitled Wander
ings in Corsica, and promised our readers
some extracts from it. We here present them
one being an account of
THE BONAPARTE HOUSE. "
From St. Charles street [Ajacco] you enter
on very small quadrangular place. An elm
tree stands before yeowish-gray plastered
house, with fiatroof and projecting balcony
1t has six front windows in its three stories,
and the doors look old and time-worn. On
the corner of this house is an inscription,
Place Letitia. " ...-.. --
| The Bonaparte house, but little changed
from its original state, as | was assured, al
though not palace, yet looks like the resi-
dence of family of rank and condition. 1t is,
indeed, palace in comparison with the village
hut in which Pasquale Paoli was born. 1t is
spacious, comfortable, and clean; but the fur
niture has all disappeared from the rooms, and
| the hangings only have been left on the walls,
and they are dapdated by time. The floor,
which, according to the Corscan custom. is
laid in small six-cornered tiles is broken in
several places. The gloominess of the empty
rooms was Increased by the closed shutters.
This dwelling, in the time of the fair Letita,
| was once animated by the presence of large
family and a cheerful hospitality. Now it is
silent as tomb and in vain do you seek for
any object connected with the history of it's
| wondrous occupants. The naked walls have
nothing to say.
| know not when the house was built, yet it
cannot be very old, as it was constructed dur
| ing the Genoese domination, and when Louis
| XIV, perhaps, filled the world with his own
glory and that of France. thought of the
| time when the master of this house founded it,
and pronounced the usual blessing, and when,
| according to consecrated custom, the kindred
accompanied the entrance into it of the family
who had constructed it, unconscious that ca
| pricious destiny would shower imperial and
royal crowns on its roof, and that it would be-
come the cradle of princely stock that " ould
overspread the world.
| The excited fancy pictured the children
gathered around their mother, as other human
children, or poring over their julius Caesar and
Plutarch, under the tuition of their grave
father or their great uncle Lucien; and the
three young sisters, growing up in as wild and
neglected manner as their neighbors of the
dcmi-savage island. There are, Joseph, the
eldest, Napoleon, the second born, Louis,
Jerome, Caroline, Elise and Pauline, the
children of notary, of moderate income, who
was engaged in, constant and fruitless litiga-
tion with the Jesuits Of Ajaccio, for property,
of which his very numerous family had need !;
for the future of his children was source of
anxiety to him. What will become of them
in the world, and how will they gain decent
subsistence?
Behold these same children, one by one
aspire after the mightiest crowns of the earth,
tear them from the heads Of the unapproach-
able kings Of Europe, wear them before all the
world, and by emperors and kings, are en-
braced as brothers and brothcrs-in-aw; great
nations fall at their feet, and place land and
people, blood and fortune, at the disposal of
the sons Of the notary of Ajaccio. Napoleon
becomes emperor of Europe, Joseph king of
Spain, Louis king Of Holland, jerome king of
| Westphalia, Pauline and Elise Italian princes
ses, and Caroline queen of Naples. So many
crowned heads, Letitia Ramolino, citizens
daughter, unknown to the world, and married
in her fourteenth year, to an equally unknown
man, bore and reared up in this little house,
in this obscure inland town. Her pangs of
labour were truly the labour pains of the
worlds history.
There is no more marvellous tale in the
Thousand and One Nights than the history of
the Bonaparte family. But that this tale in
the sober light of the most recent times, should
garded as great historical fact, and as an ex-
traordinary fortune 1t terminated half
deaf humanity, aroused it from the torpor in
which it had been sunk by political despotism
and corruption, and inspired it with new
spirit. 1t liberated mankind from antiquatcd,
traditional preudices and demonstrated that
the individual, though born in the dust, is
capable OF everything, because mankind are all
Of the same nature. The marvelousness OF
Bonapartc'S history is the fault of the med cval
condition in which life yet moves, and Of the
extravagant ideas touching the indestructible
divisions Of society. Napoleon is the political
Faust. Not in hls battles, but his .rrvolution-
airy character, consists his historical greatness.
He overturned the gods of tradition. The his
tory Of this predestinated man is therefore
very simple, human, and natural, but it cannot
yet be written.
History is also nature. There is a chain OF
causes and effects, and what we call genius or
great man, is always the result Of fixed and
necessary conditions.
An unintcrrnitted struggle of more than n
thousand years on the part Of Corsica with
her tyrants had elapsed, before the great con-
q cror Napoleon was born, in whose nature
the war-haidencd and territoriallly ambitious
people Of this island found an organ, whose as
pratlOnS were aS DOunulcSS as thc WOflu. ms
is the progressive order-the Corscan bandit
the Corsican soldier-Renuccio della Rocca
-Gafori-Pasquale Paoli-Napo'
leon.
entered a little blue carpeted chamber
with two windows, one of which opened OF
the court yard balcony, the other on thcst
\ wall closet is seen behind carpet hanging
and a chimney place, ornamentcd with yellow
marble, ard some neurological bas relictS. II
} this room Napoleon was born, August 15
l76). 1t is a singular and not easily deScrib
able feeling which interests the soul in a place
wh,r re a great man was born. Something holy
aud mysterious, consecraecd atmosphere
hangs over it, II seems as if we looked bchint
the curtain Of nature, where are secretly formct
the incomprchcnsible organs Of its movement
Othcr chambers are also shown, the family bal
room The chamber Of Madame Bctiua, the iii
tie room of Napoleon where he slep and tina
in which he studied There are also to b
s,Cn the two closets in which he kept hi
books Thcv yet contained books, which
eagerly examined, TO see if they belonged t
Napoleon; they were old, yellow bound Ia,
books, theological trcatises, n Livy, a Guic
|, ciardiui, and others, the property OF the fami
Pietra Santa, which is connected with tn