nature of the Corsicans seems to me to present the most powerful means for their education. And the mere sight of that portrait of a Corsican boy hanging on the wall of the schoolroom there, is worth a great deal; for it is the portrait of Pasquale Paoli.

CHAPTER X.

CLEMENT PAOLI.

Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.-PSALM cxliv. 1.

THE Convent of Morosaglia is perhaps the most venerable monument of Corsican history. It looks like a hoary legend petrified, brown and gloomy, with a dismal high-towering campanile by its side. At all periods of the history national parliaments were held in this old Franciscan monastery. Pasquale had rooms and offices here, and was often seen in the summer with the monks, who carried the crucifix into battle at the head of the army whenever necessity offered. His gallant brother Clement was fond of residing in the same convent, and died in one of its cells in the year 1793.

Clement Paoli is a highly remarkable character, perfectly resembling one of the Maccabees, or a crusader glowing with religious fervour. He was the eldest son of Hyacinthus. He served with distinction as a soldier in the Neapolitan service, and subsequently became one of the generals of the Corsicans. But public affairs had no charm for his fanatical spirit; and, when his brother had come to the head of the affairs of Corsica, he retired into private life, donned the dress of a lay brother, and relapsed into religious contemplation. He knelt, like Joshua, entranced in prayer to the Lord, and-on rising from prayer dashed into battle, for the Lord had given his foes into his hand. He was the mightiest in fight, and the humblest before God. His gloomy nature has something prophetic, glowing, and yet self-abasing about it, like that of Ali.

Where the danger was greatest he appeared like an avenging angel. He delivered his brother from the convent of Bozio, when besieged by Marius Matra; he drove the Genoese out of the province of Orezza after a terrible battle; he carried the assault upon San Pellegrino and San Fiorenzo; he was victorious in

innumerable battles. When the Genoese were storming the fortified camp of Furiani with all their force, Clement remained unshaken in the ruins for fifty-six days, though the whole place was battered down. A thousand shells fell all around him; but he prayed to the God of Armies, and quailed not; and the victory was his.

To Pasquale Corsica owed its freedom, from his leading mind, but to Clement solely from the achievements of his sword. He achieved most brilliant feats of arms also after the French had proceeded to assail the Corsicans, in the year 1768. He gained the glorious battle of Borgo, and he fought desperately at Ponte Nuovo, and when all was lost hastened to rescue his brother. He dashed to Niolo with a small and valiant hand to oppose General Narbonne, and cover his brother's flight. As soon as ever this movement was crowned with success, he flew to Pasquale at Bastelica, and then embarked with him sorrowing for Tuscany.

He did not accompany his brother to England, but remained in Tuscany, for a strange language would have made his heart sad. In the delightful lonely convent of Vallombroso, he relapsed again into fervent prayer and severe penance, and no one who saw this monk kneeling in prayer, would have seen in him the terrible warrior and the mighty hero of freedom.

After a convent life of twenty years in Tuscany, Clement returned to Corsica shortly before his brother. Once more he glowed with hopes for his country; but events soon discovered to the aged hero that Corsica was lost for ever. He died in penance and grief in the December of the year in which the Convention had cited his brother Pasquale ou a charge of high

treason.

In Clement the love of his country became a worship and a religion. A great and holy passion in its highest excitation is in itself religious; when it seizes upon a nation, especially in times of fearful distress, it becomes like a worship. In those days priests were heard preaching the contest from every pulpit; monks went into battle, and crucifixes supplied the place of banners. Parliaments were held mainly in convents, as though they were thus under God's immediate presidency; and in former times the Corsicans had actually by national decree placed their country under the protection of the Holy Virgin.

Pasquale was also devout. I saw the chapel which he had contrived in a dark closet in his house; it has been left undis

turbed there.

He prayed daily to God. But Clement knelt in prayer full six or seven hours every day: he prayed even in the midst of battle; and it was terrible to see him standing, with his rosary in one hand and his musket in the other, clad like the meanest Corsican and distinguishable only by his large fiery eyes and thick eyebrows. They say he could load his gun with furious quickness, and that he was so sure of his aim that he used to bless the soul of the man he was going to shoot, and to exclaim, "Poor mother!" He then sacrificed the foe to the God of Freedom. After the battle he was gentle and kind, but always grave and deeply melancholy. His words were: "My blood and my life are my country's: my soul and my thoughts are all my God's.

Pasquale's prototype must be sought among the Greeks, but Clement's among the Maccabees. The latter was a hero not of Plutarch, but of the Old Testament.

CHAPTER XI.

THE OLD HERMIT.

THEY told me at Stretta that a countryman of mine, a Prussian, was settled there, an old eccentric man on crutches; and they had told him also, that a countryman of his had arrived. So as I was returning from Clement Paoli's deathchamber, absorbed in thoughts of this old religious hero, my old countryman came hobbling up on crutches, and gave me a German shake of the hand. I ordered breakfast, and we sat down to it; and I listened for hours to the extraordinary stories of old Augustine of Nordhausen.

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"My father," he said, was a Protestant clergyman, who wished to educate me in Lutheranism; but even as a child I could not like the Protestant church, and I soon discovered that Lutheranism was a blaspheming of the sole true church, as it exists in spirit and in truth. The idea of turning missionary passed through my head. I attended the Latin school at Nordhausen, and got as far as logic and rhetoric. And when I had learned rhetoric, I went to the beautiful land of Italy, to the Trappists at Casamari, and was silent for eleven years."

"But, friend Augustine, how could you keep that up?" Why, to be sure, any one who is not cheerful cannot stand

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it long; a melancholy person becomes crazy among the Trappists.

S

I could joiner, and I joinered the whole day, and secretly hummed a tune to my work."

"What had you to eat?"

"Vegetable soup, two plates full, bread as much as we would, and half a bottle of wine. I used to eat little, but I never left a drop in the bottle. God be praised for the good wine! My brother on the right was always hungry; he always ate two plates of soup and five pieces of bread to it."

"Have you ever seen Pope Pio Nono?"

Yes, and spoken to him as a friend. He was at Rieti in the capacity of bishop, and I went there in my cowl, when I was in another convent, to fetch the consecrated oil on Good Friday. I was then very ill. The pope kissed my cowl when I came to him in the evening; and on taking leave of me he said, Fra Agostino, you are ill; you must eat something.' Sir Bishop,' I said, 'I have never seen a brother eat any thing on Good Friday.'-' No matter; you are absolved, for you are ill.' Then he sent to the first hotel for half a fowl, some meatbroth, preserve, and wine, and I sat at his table.”

"What, did the Holy Father eat, too?"

"He ate only three nuts and three figs.—I now became more and more ill, and I went to Tuscany. Suddenly I took a dislike to the works of men, and abominated them fundamentally. I resolved to turn hermit. So, taking my tools with me, and buying what I needed, I sailed to the little island of Monte Cristo. It is a little island of nine miles in circuit, uninhabited but by wild-goats, snakes, and rats. In ancient times the Emperor Diocletian kept St. Mamilian, Archbishop of Palermo, in exile there; the saint built himself a church upon the heights, where a convent was subsequently founded. There were once fifty monks there, first Benedictines, then Cistercians, and then the Carthusians of St. Bruno. The monks of Monte Cristo erected many hospitals in Tuscany, and did much good; they founded the hospital of Maria Novella at Florence. Now the Saracens carried off the monks of Monte Cristo, with all their servants and oxen; but the goats climbed up the rocks and could not be caught, and so they became wild."

"Did you live in the old convent?"

"No, it is in ruins. I lived in a cave, which I fitted up with my tools, and closed up by a wall in front."

"How did you pass your long days? I suppose you were always praying?"

"O no! I am no Pharisee. One cannot pray much. What is God's will happens. I had my flute. I went out to shoot the wild-goats, or sought for stones and plants, or watched how the sea came up against the rocks. I had also books to read." "What sort of books?"

"The whole works of the Jesuit, Paul Pater Segneri.” "What grows upon the island?"

"Nothing but heath and wild-cherries. There are some little dells that are pretty and green; all the rest is rock. A Sardinian came to the island and gave me some seed, so I got vegetables, and even planted trees."

"Is there good stone upon the island?"

"Yes, fine granite and black tourmalin, which is found in the white stone; and of black garnets I discovered three kinds. At last I fell dreadfully ill in Monte Cristo; and luckily some Tuscans came and brought me away. Now I have been here eleven years on this accursed island among its rogues; for they are all rogues alike. The physicians sent me here; but when a year is over I hope to see the land of Italy again. Such a life as that in Italy there is not in all the world besides: and the people are agreeable. I am getting old, and walk with crutches; and being old and having thought to myself, 'I shall soon have to give up my joinering, and yet desire not to go a-begging,' I went to the mountains and discovered the Negroponte."

"What is Negroponte ?"

"It is the earth of which they make tobacco-pipes in Negroponte; at home they call it Meerschaum. It is a perfect flower of a stone. This Negroponte is as good as that in Turkey; and, when I have brought it out, I shall be the only Christian that has manufactured it."

Old Augustine would have me go into his workshop. He has fitted it up in the convent, underneath the rooms of poor Clement; there he showed me with delight bis Negroponte, and the pipebowls he had already made and laid out in the sun to dry.

I fancy every one has once in his life a time when he would be glad to go into the green-wood and turn hermit; and every one has once in his life a time when he would like to keep silence, like a Trappist.

This picture of old Augustine's life I have recorded because it made such an impression on my imagination; and I think it is a genuine piece of German nature.