The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1895-12-13

beast, sketched fiat on the sea, shows
many black spots on the side: they are
mountains. There are veins Also and
these are swift streams; small circles In
few places-towns. The area Of the broad
side is 8, 376 square miles. 1t Is more than
twice as big as Rhode Island-smaller
somewhat than Connecticut. And the
population exceeds a quarter of a million
OF the towns here marked. we are con-
cc-ncd with only two; CoTts and Ajaooio
The former Is the old home of the Buona-
parties; the latter, the place to which the
family removed just at the time when, by
the birth of a man-o child clad with thun-
der, 1t was destined to emerge from me-
di@val obsourities, starlike. Sirius-like
into the open sky of fame Otherwise not
much need be said of the island, its en-
placement In the sea, its general aspects
and possibilities.
The genesis of Napoleon touches a re-
markable ethnicScondition. Nearly all Of
the West-Aryan races have contributed to
the population Of the island In which he
was born. The substratum was perhaps
that old Etrusoan life which preceded the
Italicans in Italy. The first foreign colo
nists were Greeks, out Of Ionia. These
gained supremacy in the island, but were
overwhelmed at length by the Carthagin
ians The Roman asoendenoy came next
and lasted for seven or eight centuries.
Then followed the Vandals, and after
them the Huns of Attila. Ethnic infu-
ences had meanwhile reached a second
time out of Africa Many Mauritanians
came over and settled in Sardinia and
Corsica and then, in the Dark Ages,
there was a Saracenic conquest.
More important than this was the es-
tablishment of Norman power in the is
land The people and the architecture
alike show traces of all these remote but
potent influences In determining the final
race character of the Corsicans who, after
the fifteenth century, became essentially
Italian The race is thus composite in its
derivation TO as great degree as any peo-
pie in the world Besides the ethnic or
igin, the environment-the narrow con-
fines of the island, it's mountainous char
acter, its pleasant situation in the pellucid
waters of the Mediterranean, its easy dis
lance from the long bending line of one of
the most famous coasts of the world-has
tended powerfully, by the reactions of ma
ture on the human animal, to establish
and confirm the small insular race whose
one man was destined TO give it conspic-
uous place in human annals
The Buonapartes were true Corsicans.
The family reaches back obscurely into the
Middle Ages. The name is Italian, and
shows linguistically an origin as remote
as the Renaissance There were Italian
as well as Corsican Buonapartes. A fam
lily of this name lived in the Tuscan city
of Sarzana; another perhaps, in Genoa,
and another 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 to write their name with a di,
or de, until the epoch when the Great One
was born. TIE noblesse, however, became
attenuated both in Tuscany and In the
island, whereto a branch of the family, at
some unknown date, removed and estab-
lished itself at Corte or Ajacoio.
1t would appear that the Corsioan Buon-
apartes kept an interest In Italy, whence
they originated They concerned them
selves in the affairs of Tuscany, as well as
with those OF Genoa. Doubtless they re-
garded their Importance and rank as hav-
ing been derived from the mainland, and
would fain share In the faded glories Of
the Italian cities.
At the middle of the eighteenth oen-
fury the head Of the Corsican Buonapartes
was Joseph, grandfather OF Napoleon.
The family resided at Corte in the center
of the island. Joseph received a patent OF
nobility from the grand duke Of Tuscany,
making him patrician; and this worth
less distinction was carried down to his
son, Carlo Buonaparte whose rights were
confirmed by the Archbishop of Pisa and
the King of France
The geographical position of Corsica
made it a bone of contention among the
Powers. From the sixteenth to the eight
eenth century the island was under the
suzerainty of Genoa. The people were
partisans. Some favored the Genoese;
some, the French; and some, other Italian
States. At the middle of the eighteenth
century, there was turbulence Insured
tion came, and rebellion, and attempted
independence. The patriots rose against
Genoa, and a certain General Won Neuhof
was about to be made king, when a French
army under General Marbpuf was sent
into the island to bring it into subsection.
The French had just lost their colonial
empire in North America and were anx-
ious TO make a gain i'm the Mediterranean
TO counterbalance the growing power OF
Great Britain.
After the episode of Won Neuhof, the
patriot leader Pascal Paoli gained an as