There is a story of love and heroism connected with Oletta. One hears such tales everywhere in Corsica—by the wayside, at the shepherd's watch-fire, lying in the shade, or basking in the sun. Antoine was an excellent _raconteur_; so are all such vagabonds. I possess a collection of these tales by Renucci, published at Bastia[10], and proposed to interweave some of them into my narrative. They may be worked up, with invention and embellishment, into pretty romances; but that is not our business. In Renucci, we have stories of _Ospitalità_, _Magnanimità_, _Fedeltà_, _Probità_, _Generosità_, _Incorruttibilità_, all the virtues under the sun with names ending in _tà_, and many others. One wearies of the eternal laudation lavished on these islanders, not only by their own writers, but by all travellers, from Boswell downwards.
The story of the heroine of Oletta is told by Renucci[11], and, more simply, by Marmocchi.[12] During the occupation of Capo Corso by the French, in 1751, some of the villagers were sentenced to be broken on the wheel for a conspiracy to seize the place, which was garrisoned by the French; their bodies were exposed on the scaffold, and their friends prohibited, under severe penalties, from giving them Christian burial. But a young woman, _giovinetta scelta e robusta_, as she must have been to perform the exploit assigned to her in the tale, eluded the sentries, and, taking the body of her lover, one of the conspirators executed, on her shoulders, carried it off. The general in command, struck by her exalted virtue, pardons the offence, and she is borne home in triumph amidst the shouts of the villagers.
All honour to the French marquis for his gallantry to a woman, though his tactics were somewhat savage for the reign of Louis XVI.; and all glory to Maria Gentili of Oletta, stout of heart and strong of limb, fit to be the wife and mother of bandits; still better, to have fought at Borgo, where Corsican women, in male attire, with sword and gun, rushed forward in the ranks of the island militia which triumphantly defeated a French army, composed of some of the finest troops in Europe.[13]
But let us proceed with our rambles; and, before we change the scene from the region of the vine and the orange to that of the chestnut and ilex, a short digression on the climatic zones of Corsica may not be out of place.