The Atlanta constitution., 1895-02-18

spots on the side; they are mountains.
g'rera are veins also, ana these axe sWilt
streams; small circles in few place8-
towns. The area of the broad SIDE IS S,"io
SQUARE miles. 1t IS more than tWict as pis
as Rhode Island-smaller somewhat 'A@h
ConneC ticut. And the populd'ioh eAcS0U' "
ouarter of n million.
or the towns here marked, We are con-
cer,af with only two-Corte and AJaccio.
rTha former is the oil home OF the bohd-
rartes: the latter, the place TO Which the
family removed just at the time wheA' py
the birth of q wanchud ciid Win lnui'dei,
Il was dcSUY ed to emerrc from medlaeVal
ot,-o,lrities staflike, S,rius-ike, into the
omen sky of fame. Otherwise not much
need be said Of the island. its emplacement
I'm the sen, its general .. tects ana posSiDlH-
ties.
The genesis OF Napoleon touches re-
n9rlSaGIe ethnic condition. Nearly ali Oh
tba West Aryan races have contributed to
the population Of the island in which ne
WAS born The substrdtum was perhaps
that old Etruscan life which preceded the
Ualicans in Italy. The first foreign COLO
nists we're Greeks, out of L0nIa. 1hese gam
ed silnremacy IN the island, hut We're over
whelmed at length by the CarthaginiaAs.
u-Ln Rouan a5Cpndcncy came next and
lasted for seven or eight centuries. Then
followed the NanGals, ana after them me
Huns Of Attila. Ethnic influences mad
meanwhile reached . second jliae out OF
Africa Many Maurtanians came over
ana settled in Sardinia and Corsica; ana
then, in the dark ages, there was eaII-
ccnic conquest.
More important than this was the estab-
lishment of Norman power in the island.
The people and the architecture alike snow
traces OF all these remote but potent influ-
erces in determining the final race-char-
acter OK the COrsicans who. after the tif-
teenth century, became essentially Italian.
The race is thus composite In its derivation
to as great a degree as any people in the
world. Besides the ethnic origin the en-
Virorment-the narrow confines OF the IS
land. its mountainous character, its pleas
ant situation in the pcllucid waters of the
Mediterranean it's easy distance from the
long bending line of one OF the most famous
coasts of the worId-h5s tended powerfully.
by the reactions OF nature on the human
animal, to establish and confirm the small
insuar race whose one man was destined
to give it a conspicuous place in human
annals.
The Bonaparts were true Corslcans. Tho
family reaches back obscurely into the
middle ages. The name is Italian, and
shows lnguistically an origin as remote
as the Renaissance. There were Italian as
well Corsican Bonapartes. family of
this name lived in the Tuscan city of Sar-
zana another perhaps, in Genoa. and an
other at Florence. Examples are found in
which the spelling iS given thus-BuOna
Parte. They of SarZana were ennobled in
the sixteenth century. and continued 70
write their name with di, or de, until
the epoch when the great one was born.
The noblesse, however. became attentuatsd,
both in Tuscany and in the island, whereto
q branch of the family, at some unkonwn
date, removed and established itself at
Corte or Ajaccio.
1t would appear that the Corsican Bona
81 sN,a-
they originated. They concerned them
selves in the affairs of Tuscany as well as
with those of Genoa. Doubtless they re-
garced their Importance ard rank as having
been derived from the mainland, end would
fain share in the faded glories of the Ital-
ian cities.
At the middle of the eighteenth century
the head of the Corsican Bcnapartes was
Joseph, grandfather of Napoleon. The fam
lily resided at Corte, in the center of the
island. Joseph received a patent OF nobility
from the grand duke Of Tuscany, making
him q. patriCan; and this worthless oistinc-
ton was carried down to his son, Carlo