their money consequently was debased and almost worthless. The
social distinctions of noble and peasant survived only in tradition,
and all classes intermingled without any sense of superiority or
inferiority. Elegance of manner, polish, grace, were unsought and
existed only by natural refinement, which was rare among a people who
were on the whole simple to boorishness. Physically they were,
however, admirable. All visitors were struck by the repose and
self-reliance of their countenances. The women were neither beautiful,
stylish, nor neat. Yet they were considered modest and attractive. The
men were more striking in appearance and character. Of medium stature
and powerful mold, with black hair, fine teeth, and piercing eyes;
with well-formed, agile, and sinewy limbs; sober, brave, trustworthy,
and endowed with many other primitive virtues as well, the Corsican
was everywhere sought as a soldier, and could be found in all the
armies of the southern continental states.

In their periodic struggles against Genoese encroachments and tyranny,
the Corsicans had produced a line of national heroes. Sampiero, one of
these, had in the sixteenth century incorporated Corsica for a brief
hour with the dominions of the French crown, and was regarded as the
typical Corsican. Dark, warlike, and revengeful, he had displayed a
keen intellect and a fine judgment. Simple in his dress and habits,
untainted by the luxury then prevalent in the courts of Florence and
Paris, at both of which he resided for considerable periods, he could
kill his wife without a shudder when she put herself and child into
the hands of his enemies to betray him. Hospitable and generous, but
untamed and terrible; brusque, dictatorial, and without consideration
or compassion; the offspring of his times and his people, he stands
the embodiment of primeval energy, physical and mental.

The submission of a people like this to a superior force was sullen,
and in the long century which followed, the energies generally
displayed in a well-ordered life seemed among them to be not quenched
but directed into the channels of their passions and their bodily
powers, which were ready on occasion to break forth in devastating
violence. In 1729 began a succession of revolutionary outbursts, and
at last in 1730 the communal assemblies united in a national
convention, choosing two chiefs, Colonna-Ceccaldi and Giafferi, to
lead in the attempt to rouse the nation to action and thr