King Theodore's Corsica
- Thread starter Carp
- Start date
Oh no, the shippers have already infested the fandom section of this forum. Do you really want them in the pre-1900 area? So far, we have managed to get by with only the Henry VIII/Catherine OTP group and a couple Boelyn fans really being vocal and they are just focused on stories where their favourite characters appear.
One of my biggest problems in this timeline is that there’s so much rumor and conflicting information about Theodore and his friends. We don’t actually know that Hamet was hanged; we know that a monk was caught by the Genoese smuggling gold and letters for Theodore, that this fits with who Hamet was (a monk) and what he was probably doing at the time (acting as a courier for Theodore), that the Genoese hanged some traitors at Bastia subsequently (which angered Theodore so much that he threatened to massacre Genoese prisoners), and that Hamet doesn’t appear thereafter.
Theodore’s family is another source of conflicting stories. Theodore himself said his wife died in 1724 and his daughter was reported to have died young. The Genoese alleged that he had abandoned his wife and daughter to starve in poverty, which likewise suggests that they were dead. Yet in 1736 a satirical novel dedicated to Neuhoff’s wife was published by the Marquis d’Argens and he treats her as very much alive; was she really alive or was the book based on rumor? If the former, why did Theodore say his wife was dead? D’Argens refers to his wife as Irish, which Catalina was - but perhaps he was confusing his information about Catalina with Maria Rhein, the nun whom Theodore had “liberated” from her convent and had become his assistant during his years as an alchemist. Some have claimed that Theodore married Maria, which is certainly possible, and the Genoese must have at least heard rumors of this because they accused Theodore of being a bigamist. Later in 1736, a gazette reported that one of Theodore’s Irish officers had gone to Paris to deliver letters to a former lady of the Queen Dowager of Spain, which sounds like a good description of Catalina (who was Irish, a former lady in waiting to the Spanish Queen, and, last we know of, lived in Paris). In 1737 the Chevalier de Jaucourt claimed that Theodore had in previous years traveled with his “wife” around Europe, which sounds more like Maria than Catalina. And then there’s the single isolated report of a British officer who, many years after Neuhoff’s death, swore that he had met Theodore’s daughter (whose name we still don’t know) living comfortably in a Spanish convent for noble ladies. Perhaps his daughter, not his wife, was the mysterious lady in Paris receiving Theodore’s letters. But if she lived into adulthood (and indeed outlived her father), why did Theodore never once speak of her or even mention her name, such that not even his closest comrades like Costa mentioned that he had a living child?
A great deal of his life remains smoke and shadows, unfortunately.
Theodore’s pre-1736 life might be HBO-worthy. Apart from his known wives (of which he had two, Catalina Sarsfield and Isobel Edmonstone), he had a number of fond female associates: He absconded from a convent with Maria Rhein, an Austrian nun, who was his travelling assistant during his career as an alchemist and miracle healer; he had a ne’er-do-well mistress in London named Maria Raby who had a variety of pseudonyms and palled around with forgers and thieves; he had an affair with Madame de Champigny, the young opera singer trophy wife of a Lorrainer nobleman, and had to defend himself with a chair when said nobleman caught them together at Theodore’s love nest in a private room above a coffeehouse; and he had a flirtatious (but probably not sexual) relationship with a Roman abbess and her sister, Angelica and Francesca Fonseca, whose convent he stayed in when he was a spy and with whom he exchanged letters for years afterwards (which he sealed with a special signet of Cupid riding a lion). And those are just the women we know about.
Alas, his romantic attachments become considerably fewer after his Corsican adventure in 1736. He kept corresponding with the Fonseca sisters and Madame de Champigny, but these relationships were now long-distance and presumably platonic. He was said to have proposed to Lady Lucy Stanhope, and in 1750 he married Isobel Edmonstone, but his days of liberating nuns from convents and trysting with other men's wives seem to have been over. Perhaps he was just getting too old for that sort of behavior, or perhaps his Corsican efforts consumed all his time.
You jest, but I have often thought about how one of the weaknesses of this story is that there are virtually no female characters. One of the things I liked about SotHE was making interesting and powerful empresses, but there’s very little to work with within the bounds of historically-existing women in 1730s/40s Corsica. The only named women I know about from this period are the wives of various men, who are known to us only because they were the wives of those men. The only one who stands out for doing something on her own is Faustina Matra, Gaffori’s wife, who threatened to blow herself and her husband’s men to pieces with a barrel of gunpowder and a lit match if they dared surrender to the Genoese who were besieging her house. (Unfortunately that escapade has been averted entirely ITTL.) There are a few stories involving Theodore and Corsican women, but they are nameless. One (probably false) story alleges that Theodore was attacked by one of his Corsican guards for flirting with his sister; another story holds that he intervened to preserve the honor of a woman and her daughter who were in some danger of being violated by the rebels. Such minor characters mentioned only in single anecdotes seem to be the extent of their presence in the narrative.
Part of the problem here is Corsica itself, which was a rigidly patriarchal society. We’re talking about a society in which an unmarried woman is permanently dishonored and rendered unmarriageable if she is seen alone with a man not of her family, or if she is seen to speak with such a man in private, or if such a man should so much as touch her hand (even if it’s in public). Married women were better off, but as mentioned they were generally overshadowed by their husbands and male relations, and even for a married woman Corsica was very, very far from being at the vanguard of European feminism.
So while I’d dearly like to have more women in this story, for the moment they’re just not very easy to include given my policy so far of sticking to historical characters. Obviously I won’t be sticking to historical characters forever, but even then 18th century Corsica is not the easiest place to see women in power unless they’re literally the queen.
Theodore’s family is another source of conflicting stories. Theodore himself said his wife died in 1724 and his daughter was reported to have died young. The Genoese alleged that he had abandoned his wife and daughter to starve in poverty, which likewise suggests that they were dead. Yet in 1736 a satirical novel dedicated to Neuhoff’s wife was published by the Marquis d’Argens and he treats her as very much alive; was she really alive or was the book based on rumor? If the former, why did Theodore say his wife was dead? D’Argens refers to his wife as Irish, which Catalina was - but perhaps he was confusing his information about Catalina with Maria Rhein, the nun whom Theodore had “liberated” from her convent and had become his assistant during his years as an alchemist. Some have claimed that Theodore married Maria, which is certainly possible, and the Genoese must have at least heard rumors of this because they accused Theodore of being a bigamist. Later in 1736, a gazette reported that one of Theodore’s Irish officers had gone to Paris to deliver letters to a former lady of the Queen Dowager of Spain, which sounds like a good description of Catalina (who was Irish, a former lady in waiting to the Spanish Queen, and, last we know of, lived in Paris). In 1737 the Chevalier de Jaucourt claimed that Theodore had in previous years traveled with his “wife” around Europe, which sounds more like Maria than Catalina. And then there’s the single isolated report of a British officer who, many years after Neuhoff’s death, swore that he had met Theodore’s daughter (whose name we still don’t know) living comfortably in a Spanish convent for noble ladies. Perhaps his daughter, not his wife, was the mysterious lady in Paris receiving Theodore’s letters. But if she lived into adulthood (and indeed outlived her father), why did Theodore never once speak of her or even mention her name, such that not even his closest comrades like Costa mentioned that he had a living child?
A great deal of his life remains smoke and shadows, unfortunately.
Theodore’s pre-1736 life might be HBO-worthy. Apart from his known wives (of which he had two, Catalina Sarsfield and Isobel Edmonstone), he had a number of fond female associates: He absconded from a convent with Maria Rhein, an Austrian nun, who was his travelling assistant during his career as an alchemist and miracle healer; he had a ne’er-do-well mistress in London named Maria Raby who had a variety of pseudonyms and palled around with forgers and thieves; he had an affair with Madame de Champigny, the young opera singer trophy wife of a Lorrainer nobleman, and had to defend himself with a chair when said nobleman caught them together at Theodore’s love nest in a private room above a coffeehouse; and he had a flirtatious (but probably not sexual) relationship with a Roman abbess and her sister, Angelica and Francesca Fonseca, whose convent he stayed in when he was a spy and with whom he exchanged letters for years afterwards (which he sealed with a special signet of Cupid riding a lion). And those are just the women we know about.
Alas, his romantic attachments become considerably fewer after his Corsican adventure in 1736. He kept corresponding with the Fonseca sisters and Madame de Champigny, but these relationships were now long-distance and presumably platonic. He was said to have proposed to Lady Lucy Stanhope, and in 1750 he married Isobel Edmonstone, but his days of liberating nuns from convents and trysting with other men's wives seem to have been over. Perhaps he was just getting too old for that sort of behavior, or perhaps his Corsican efforts consumed all his time.
You jest, but I have often thought about how one of the weaknesses of this story is that there are virtually no female characters. One of the things I liked about SotHE was making interesting and powerful empresses, but there’s very little to work with within the bounds of historically-existing women in 1730s/40s Corsica. The only named women I know about from this period are the wives of various men, who are known to us only because they were the wives of those men. The only one who stands out for doing something on her own is Faustina Matra, Gaffori’s wife, who threatened to blow herself and her husband’s men to pieces with a barrel of gunpowder and a lit match if they dared surrender to the Genoese who were besieging her house. (Unfortunately that escapade has been averted entirely ITTL.) There are a few stories involving Theodore and Corsican women, but they are nameless. One (probably false) story alleges that Theodore was attacked by one of his Corsican guards for flirting with his sister; another story holds that he intervened to preserve the honor of a woman and her daughter who were in some danger of being violated by the rebels. Such minor characters mentioned only in single anecdotes seem to be the extent of their presence in the narrative.
Part of the problem here is Corsica itself, which was a rigidly patriarchal society. We’re talking about a society in which an unmarried woman is permanently dishonored and rendered unmarriageable if she is seen alone with a man not of her family, or if she is seen to speak with such a man in private, or if such a man should so much as touch her hand (even if it’s in public). Married women were better off, but as mentioned they were generally overshadowed by their husbands and male relations, and even for a married woman Corsica was very, very far from being at the vanguard of European feminism.
So while I’d dearly like to have more women in this story, for the moment they’re just not very easy to include given my policy so far of sticking to historical characters. Obviously I won’t be sticking to historical characters forever, but even then 18th century Corsica is not the easiest place to see women in power unless they’re literally the queen.
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I should hope the past tense here is not intentional!
But yegads I do love anecdotes like these. Half the reason I love reading about history is the utter insanity (like, a blind, 90 year old merchant personally leading the assault against the greatest city in the West, or a pair of illiterate Spaniards destroying the largest Empire outside of China, or everything involving Frederick the Great of Prussia, or Alexander Hamilton and Grant- currently I'm reading the latter biography by Chernow, I suspect the man is as biased as any popular historian but their lives are interesting regardless).
Speaking of queens... will Theodore still marry Isobel Edmonstone or rather perhaps a Corsican to help solidify his position?
I should hope the past tense here is not intentional!
Well, "liked" in that I'm not currently updating it right now.
I do worry that I'm not imaginative enough to write this TL. My feeling is that I tend to be pretty conservative with alt-history. Worrying a lot about plausibility is generally a good thing, but when the history concerns someone so fundamentally implausible as Theodore it can be a hindrance.
I doubt he'll even meet Isobel Edmonstone ITTL. If he marries a Brit, Lady Lucy Stanhope is far more likely, as they've met ITTL and Walpole reported rumors that he'd proposed to her (as IOTL).
I don't really know what Lady Stanhope's feelings for Theodore were, or whether she would have ever consented to marry him, move to Corsica, and convert to Catholicism (which would be constitutionally necessary). Presumably, however, the chance of them actually marrying is higher when he's a king than when he's a penniless vagrant as he was IOTL.
Dunno about all that. Your Italian timeline is quite imaginative, I think. This may fall very heavily on the research vs. invention end of timelines to be sure, but that's what makes this unique. Nobody else here had the combination of sources and imagination to pull this off and it's one of the craziest and best timelines here as a result.
Conservatism here is the only way to make it feel plausible. If you were to really go crazy with something like this, really try to have fun it with, I think suspension of disbelief would be a much bigger concern.
My own problems with alt-history emerge as we move beyond the prompt. Namely that I emphasize the "trends and forces" things, and discount individuals, and thus (ironically) as I move beyond the scope, and try to imagine the fallout of a premise (ie, "what if France collapsed like Poland in the Middle Ages") I find myself in the wide open field of novelty. In that regards I remind myself two things: first, that history (and alt history) may rhyme (and indeed it should!) but it shan't ever repeat, and second that reality being unrealistic, and the job of the Alt-Historian being first and foremost to tell an entertaining (as well as plausible) story, not to be afraid of recognizing that "random" hardly precludes "abnormal", as the history of the House of Hohenzollern (to take one of several obvious examples) readily attests!
Is this the Lucy Stanhope who was the daughter of the 1st Earl Stanhope? (I sound hesitant because there are apparently quite a lot of Lucy Stanhopes around, and sifting them is somewhat challenging). If so she'd be in her mid-30's by this point (born 1714) which raises the obvious question of if she's still free to marry, and if so why? (At the risk of generalising, but Stanhope women tended towards (a) the eccentric; and (b) being by 18thC standards at least raging feminists - neither of which would automatically make her a good fit for Corsican society.) Nevertheless if available Lucy would be a good choice, albeit a colourful one but Theodore may decide his position would benefit from someone quieter...
She is indeed the twin sister of the 2nd Earl Stanhope born in 1714. Alas, all I know about their relationship IOTL is that a) Theodore was widely rumored to have proposed to her, and that b) Horace Walpole thought Theodore had fallen "in love" with her. Granted that Walpole is not necessarily the best source for Theodore's feelings and motivations - the baron is, as we know, quite capable of playing a character, and despite Walpole's long interest in Theodore they weren't really that close. I suppose the intent could have been political, but if so, it's difficult to see how exactly Theodore thought he might benefit from it unless his intent was merely to improve his London social circle. I see no reason to think the rumor is wholly untrue, but it does seem like a counter-intuitive choice unless Theodore really did have some kind of feelings for her. As Theodore's ardor tended to be of the temporary variety, however, I doubt that would stop him from marrying someone else in the future (and indeed, it didn't IOTL).
Speaking of bridal ages, I'm not sure exactly what the norms were for differential age marriages in this era. Theodore was around 54 by the end of the WoAS, and young women of royal or near-royal status seem to have married quite young. Even if Theodore was an otherwise respectable figure, would a marriage between a man in his mid-50s to some 18-ish year old princess be considered strange? (I mean, I'm sure the bride wouldn't be too keen...)
I think it's perfectly plausible that it was no more complicated than that he was sweet on her. The picture you've painted of him is a man who would prefer the women in his life to be lively and full of personality rather than quiet and submissive and Stanhope girls did tend towards the former OTL.
The impression I've got is that first marriages tended to pretty close together in age (because of the tendency to marry the sprogs off ASAP) with larger age gaps on subsequent marriages (after a death in childbirth forex) - but even there, more than 20 years would be pushing it and a ~40 year gap would definitely make Theodore a figure of fun by giving him something of a "dirty old man" reputation. His best bet is probably not to try for suitable virgins and instead look for a respectable widow in her late 20's-late 30's and ideally one who has already proved her fertility (ironically what Napoleon Bonaparte did for his first marriage...). Fortunately the WoAS should ensure that there will be a glut on this particular market in the next year or two.
For commoners yes ,for the rich maybe ( Palmerston for example was cited in a divorce case in his seventies and had favorable press ), for a King without a heir of his body , all that would be discussed was fertility of the bride. King's were seen to have an obligation to beget heirs, age difference was irrelevant if they did not have sons.
Thanks - I appreciate the insight, and I hadn’t thought much about the notion of “proven” fertility. I think it’s worth noting, however, that Theodore doesn’t seem to have been all that desperate to have “heirs of his body;” he appears to have been totally fine with the idea of a nephew or cousin succeeding him (as noted, he wrote to the King of France asking him to allow Charles-Philippe to come to Corsica to show the people he had an heir). The clause in the 1736 Constitution granting him the ability to name a heir “of his relation” may well have been his own contribution to the document, knowing that as an unmarried man of 42 (at the time of his election) his chances of siring an heir were not phenomenally high.
I think he will marry - he clearly liked having female companionship, and it would be unseemly (particularly in Corsica) for him to pursue that companionship as a bachelor. The “normal” reasons for royal marriage, however - to wit, progeny and alliances - don’t really apply to him because he’s not desperate to have children and he’s too lowly and disreputable to obtain a true royal bride. As a result, I suspect his choice will be based in substantial part on his own predilections, which were as far as I can tell for women who were lively, pretty, and young. Perhaps 40 years would be too much of a gap even for Theodore, but many of the women he was involved with were considerably younger than him: Maria Rhein was 10 years his junior, Lady Stanhope was 20 years his junior, and while I don’t know Isobel Edmonstone’s exact age the fact that she died in 1794 suggests that she was likewise considerably younger than her husband.*
Given his financial problems and the poverty of his state, a large dowry might also be a motivating factor, but probably not the primary one. Theodore would do a lot of things for money, but marrying old heiresses doesn’t seem to have been one of them.
I’m still thinking very seriously about the younger sisters of the Princess of Massa-Carrara. They’re a bit young - born 1726 and 1728, so 32 and 34 years Theodore’s junior, respectively - but by the end of the war they’d be in their 20s, they’re members of a house which is sovereign but not particularly exalted (and intermarried with plenty of non-royal nobility), they’re geographically close and get the Neuhoffs a toehold in Italian diplomacy, and they come with a dowry of 30,000 scudi d’oro each. He’d to make his move fairly soon (or enjoy the benefits of some fortunate butterflies) to snag the elder of the two, Maria Anna Matilde, as she was married in 1748, but if he could manage it she’d be a good catch genealogically; IOTL she had 8 children (five of whom reached adulthood) and lived to 71.
*All I can find of her age is that she was the “eldest of five daughters,” one of whom (possibly the second-youngest) was born in 1724. My guess is that Isobel was no older than Lady Stanhope.
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I am afraid that in these cases, brides usually weren't supposed to have an opinion, much less to voice it.
The Triumph
The Triumph
Ajaccio, early 19th century painting
Ajaccio, early 19th century painting
With the appointment of Bishop Pier Maria Giustiniani to the office of Commissioner-General of Corsica, it seemed that the Genoese government had finally determined upon a course of compromise and forgiveness to reconcile the Corsicans with the Republic and restore harmony and peace throughout the land. It had only taken them thirteen and a half years of rebellion, two periods of foreign intervention involving more than 25,000 French and Imperial soldiers, more than 20 million scudi, and thousands of deaths.
Giustiniani immediately went about familiarizing himself with his new position, which involved interviewing his officers and functionaries and reviewing Bastia’s troops and fortifications, as well as pouring over reports and records from the other commissioners. Although he had been chosen in the hopes that a negotiated peace could be found, he could not neglect the defense of the citadels, and in any case he was unable to even consider making the Corsicans a formal offer until the Senate approved a list of concessions, which was not accomplished and communicated to Giustiniani until late June. In the meantime, the greatest dilemma he faced was how to deal with the ongoing siege of Ajaccio. The reports from Vice-Regent Gian Benedetto Speroni, recently appointed commissioner of the city, were dire, and it was clear that despite withstanding a "siege" of one sort or another for years, this time was different. If Ajaccio was not relieved soon, it might actually fall.
Giustiniani had hoped to negotiate an armistice with the rebels that would allow Ajaccio to be resupplied, but he soon discovered that the (mostly northern) representatives of the national movement had absolutely no authority over the besieging forces under the command of Marquis Luca d’Ornano. If the city were to fall into the hands of the Corsicans, it would call into question the feasibility of the Genoese “toehold strategy” in Corsica, and it might also severely harm prospects for a negotiated peace. Undoubtedly Theodore and the inconciliabili would point to such a victory as proof that the rebellion could indeed oust the Genoese from the island and counter the argument of the pro-reconciliation faction that a negotiated peace was the only feasible way to end the war in a manner favorable to the Corsican people.
Giustiniani ordered a relief fleet to be assembled, but this proved a considerable logistical challenge. The supply situation of the Genoese on Corsica had improved only modestly since the collapse of the interior garrisons, and Giustiniani discovered shortages of everything - of provisions, of naval stores, of ships, and even of sailors. The Genoese state fleet was small and already occupied with patrolling the Corsican coast, while Genoese mariners were mostly involved in commerce and generally unwilling to abandon more lucrative trades for mere patriotism. Because of the time-sensitive nature of the mission, Giustiniani determined it would be best to send at least some reinforcements immediately rather than waiting until the greatest possible number could be spared.
Giustiniani hoped that with added reinforcements Speroni could break the siege, but there was another potential option: convince the Corsicans call off the siege voluntarily. The only man who was capable of doing that was Marquis d’Ornano. Aware that d’Ornano had flirted with returning to the Genoese fold in the past, Giustiniani attempted to correspond with him through Speroni, offering him money, a colonel’s commission, and various other inducements if he were to withdraw his forces or merely observe an "armistice" which would allow Ajaccio to be safely reinforced and resupplied.
Had Giustiniani made this offer in March, when the siege had just begun, he may have gained better traction. D’Ornano professed his loyalty to the national movement, but after seeing Theodore’s rather underwhelming entourage and his apparent abandonment by the British, the marquis had serious doubts as to how realistic the king’s project of a renewed rebellion actually was. Certainly Matthias von Drost, present at the siege, questioned d’Ornano’s loyalty in his reports to Theodore and opined that his alleged trading with the enemy was just further evidence that d’Ornano was more interested in profit than victory.
Yet while it is impossible to delve into d’Ornano’s thoughts, it seems plausible that by June his concerns were not chiefly about money, but politics. Although his loyalty often seemed to waver, D’Ornano was in one fashion a thoroughly consistent man: He consistently chose whichever side seemed most likely to protect his power and autonomy. Grand Duke Franz Stefan had been in a sense his ideal patron - lofty, rich, and powerful, yet credulous, far away, and utterly unconcerned with having any sort of meaningful control in Corsica. The Genoese were neither so grand nor so distant, but their power in the interior had slipped so far that allegiance to the Republic entailed few obligations.
Although d’Ornano had not been present at the consulta of Bozio, he clearly followed the events there closely, and could not have been pleased with what transpired. The Bozio assembly, as noted, saw the power of the consulta attain a new peak - it levied taxes, raised forces, and acted as though it was a true national legislative body. It claimed jurisdiction over the whole island and all its people despite the fact that the Dila had been woefully underrepresented. Although d’Ornano was not necessarily hostile to the idea of reconciliation with Genoa, he was plainly opposed to the idea of a national government led by a consulta based in the north and dominated by northern magnates (particularly Gianpietro Gaffori, whom d’Ornano had come to despise) extending its control throughout the island. The northerners, considering themselves the vanguard of the rebellion, had never given much consideration for the south; but even if they had scrupulously observed a system of representative proportionality between the "Two Corsicas," simple math dictated that the Dila would always be under the shadow of the Diqua since the Diqua had around twice as many residents. The democratic principle, so dear to the Castigniccians, could easily appear to a cynical mind as merely a tool to dominate the south through brash majoritarianism. Certainly the northerners seemed to have no interest in recognizing the Dila’s autonomy. Although the weakness of the Genoese made them theoretically attractive as patrons, their absolute powerlessness in the interior also meant that they could not possibly shield d’Ornano from overreach by the northern rebel government.
The only actual impediment to some kind of Gaffori-led northern council government was within the national movement itself: Theodore and the inconciliabili. The recent example of Marquis Simone Fabiani was instructive. Here was a Theodoran loyalist who had effectively defied the “moderate” faction of the consulta, liquidated pro-reconciliation forces within the Balagna, and turned the Balagna into his own autonomous state. That was not very different from what d’Ornano probably considered to be the ideal situation for himself and his own dominions in the southwest. As for Theodore himself, whatever his faults and eccentricities he might have, the king was clearly more congenial to the southern nobility than the more democratic-minded northerners of the Castagniccia. Although Theodore had, in d'Ornano's view, placed altogether too much emphasis on the northern struggle, he had admittedly respected d’Ornano’s privileges in the years of his initial reign. Thus it may have been neither malice towards the Genoese nor duty to Theodore, but primarily a desire to weaken the nascent consulta government and its exponents like Gaffori, that d’Ornano decided to decline the Genoese offer. Or, more accurately, he stalled it; Speroni reported back to Giustiniani that d'Ornano was glacial in his responses, and the when they arrived they were noncommittal and vague. Speroni bemoaned d'Ornano's inconstancy and greed, but in fact the marquis had already decided to see the siege through to the end.
The contribution of the “relief fleet” which arrived in the Gulf of Ajaccio on June 21st proved to be underwhelming. Speroni was dismayed to find that the fleet’s soldiers under Major Giovanni Kinich numbered only 300 men, nearly half of whom were micheletti.[1] Speroni’s own situation had become desperate, with many his men weakened or incapacitated by fever (possibly typhus) and scabies, maladies no doubt encouraged by cramped quarters and poor hygiene. 300 men did not seem like enough to tip the balance of power decisively in favor of the Genoese, which meant all Kinich had brought him were 300 more mouths to feed and water (to say nothing of the sailors of the fleet). But even landing this force proved to be a problem, as the only practicable place out of range of Fort Costa’s guns was the shoreline west of the city, and the ridge above the shore was occupied by the rebels. The Corsicans were able to foil a landing on the 21st, as Kinich feared to storm a beach with ship’s boats and a mere 300 men (half of whom were militia). It was not until the 23rd that an attack by Speroni's garrison, led by the Greeks, succeeded in driving the rebels from these positions after hours of fighting. This was enough to allow Kinich to disembark a large part of his forces, but to unload tons of supplies without port facilities was more than a mere day's work, and the Corsican irregulars readily infiltrated back into their former positions under the veil of night.
The fleet could not remain indefinitely in the gulf. They would eventually be required to return to Bastia to fetch further reinforcements (although Kinich could not say when and Giustiniani was frustratingly noncommittal), but substantially before that point it was likely that they would be forced to return after running through their own water supply. Speroni, who was pessimistic about his chances and had no ships of his own, realized that this might be his last opportunity to evacuate from Ajaccio and avoid losing both the city and the garrison. Perhaps more to show he had done his utmost than any sort of reasonable belief in his success, he directed Colonel Gio Tommaso Varenne to make a last-ditch attempt to drive off the rebels with the help of Kinich's landed reinforcements. This met with considerable initial success; the Greeks in particular were fierce fighters and threw back the Corsicans despite the presence of Colonel Antonio Colonna-Bozzi and his men. Individual bravery, however, was not a substitute for leadership, and that was lacking. Varenne was ill, Speroni had sunk into morose fatalism, and Kinich lacked the boldness - or insolence - necessary to seize command of the whole army and shoulder the responsibility for its success or failure. The Greek captains urged an attack, but Kinich dithered until it was too late, and with the coming of darkness and the arrival of more Corsican militia the Genoese drew back to their defenses having accomplished nothing of consequence.
On the 26th of June, Speroni sent a delegation to d’Ornano to determine the terms under which the Genoese might evacuate the city. To withdraw the garrison would be difficult under rebel pressure, and Speroni hoped that a negotiated capitulation - for that is what it was - would also allow him to safeguard the rights of the citizens who remained. D’Ornano was obliging; he had no particular desire to actually destroy the Genoese and suspected hundreds of prisoners would be a burden rather than an asset. He did, however, have conditions. There was some haggling on the finer points of the agreement, but Speroni was not in a strong negotiating position, and Drost indicates that d'Ornano's proposal was accepted with only minor modification. The points of the agreement regarding the evacuation itself may be summarized as follows:
- A truce shall be immediately declared between the belligerent parties.
- The Genoese shall be permitted to embark as many soldiers as they have the means to carry on their ships presently within the bay, who shall be permitted to leave with their muskets and [full] cartridge-boxes.
- All other ammunition, small arms, and military stores shall be surrendered by the Genoese and left in place in the arsenal.
- All artillery shall be left in place and intact, and the Genoese shall make no attempt to cripple or destroy the city's defenses.
- The Genoese shall effect the disarmament of all militia and irregular troops under their command.
- Once the above points have been accomplished, the city will be surrendered to Marquis d'Ornano and his forces and the Genoese fleet will depart.
Faced with Speroni's shocking capitulation and his intent to leave those who remained helpless against the Corsicans, a group of Greek militiamen led by Captain Teodori Busacci and his brothers rioted, which soon became an impromptu uprising. Busacci’s men appears to have briefly attempted to rouse the Genoese to join him and drive out the Corsicans, but was unsuccessful; Speroni had no intention of breaking the truce. The rioters disarmed a group of Genoese soldiers who were unwilling to actually fire on the Greeks, but the citadel and its armory remained in Genoese hands. Moreover, Busacci’s fellow Greek militia captains Micaglia Stefanopoli and Teodori Cozzifacci refused to join him, fearing this ill-considered action would merely make things worse. Busacci's "uprising" swiftly collapsed, having resulted in a few wounded men but no deaths, and the Busacci brothers surrendered themselves to the Genoese. Speroni was not without pity, but if he offered the Busacci brothers asylum - and a ticket out of Ajaccio - it would be a reward for rebellion, an encouragement to all those left behind to start rioting if they wanted a space on the Genoese flotilla. Thus the commissioner turned them over to the Corsicans, who confined them and some of their followers to a cellar (later moving them to a proper jail after gaining control of the citadel). The Genoese were permitted to complete their evacuation in peace, and their last vision of the city was of the Moor’s Head flying over the citadel.
Luca d’Ornano now held Ajaccio, the second largest city in Corsica, in his hands. Under d’Ornano’s authority, the residents of the Borgu were encouraged to return and the Corsican soldiers began moving food and water into the town to relieve the acute state of privation there. D’Ornano declared martial law and strictly prohibited reprisals; unlike after the capture of Bastia years before, nobody in Ajaccio would be shot as a traitor. When it came to property, however, the general was less scrupulous. Notwithstanding promises d'Ornano had made to Speroni to respect the property of the Genoese citizens, Drost alleged that the marquis extorted money from the Genoese and Greeks in exchange for protection in the guise of “war taxes,” a practice which Drost did not exactly condemn but implied it had more to do with the general's enrichment than the prosecution of the war. That said, the siege had been taxing on d’Ornano’s own resources, and the marquis no doubt considered it just compensation for his exertions considering that he received no salary from Theodore.
D’Ornano’s military rule lasted scarcely more than a week. On the 6th of July, King Theodore arrived from Corti; it appears that he had departed after receiving word from Drost of the arrival of the relief fleet, and came with a column of militiamen and guards in tow. As with Bastia seven years before, Theodore made an entrance on horseback and in his full finery (such as it was) with a column of uniformed troops (presumably Colonna’s battalion) marching behind. The king was effusive with praise for d’Ornano, whom he addressed as his “most able and steadfast commander.”
His first audience after congratulating his troops and officers was with the city’s council of elders. Although they were Genoese citizens, the elders and their families had deep roots in Ajaccio; some of them had ancestors who had served on the same council as far back as the 16th century. They graciously welcomed Theodore and pledged their loyalty, which had less to do with Corsican patriotism and more to do with a desire to protect their positions and properties, as Theodore was in a position to shield them from d’Ornano’s avarice. Theodore was equally gracious and complied with most of their requests. He declared that those citizens who pledged their loyalty would have their property respected and be spared from “arbitrary taxes,” although this decree was apparently not retroactive. To placate the city’s elite, Theodore entrusted the governorship of the city to Giuseppe Costa, the son of his late chancellor Sebastiano. Although he was only 27 years old, Costa’s appointment pleased the elders as he was native of Ajaccio and related to several families of the local nobili including the locally prominent clans of Pozzo di Borgo and Buonaparte. Colonna and his battalion would also remain in the city, at least temporarily, to keep order. D’Ornano had no serious objection; although there was some prestige in holding Ajaccio, d’Ornano knew that his base of power was in the hinterland and had no particular desire to play city manager. He retained the title of “Lieutenant-General of the Dila” and thus remained the overall superior officer in the southwest.
The status of the Greeks was a much thornier topic. Theodore pardoned and released the Busacci brothers and the rest of the imprisoned Greeks, noting that they had not actually killed anyone and had arguably rebelled against the Genoese, not the Kingdom of Corsica. But the most pressing issue of the Greek community concerned not justice and armaments, but simple subsistence. Prior to the rebellion, the Greeks had made their living as farmers. The loss of their community at Paomia had destroyed their livelihoods, and while some practiced jobs and trades in Ajaccio the community as a whole had been heavily dependent on Genoese wages paid to the militia companies, as fully a quarter of the community - comprising most of their able-bodied men - was on the Republic’s payroll. Owing to the Republic’s own difficulties that salary had already fallen into arrears, but now it was cut off entirely. Without money or arms, the Greeks would have difficulty returning to their farming life and would be quickly ruined - or exterminated - by Corsican raids and reprisals if they tried.
Theodore assured the Greek leaders that he had no ill-will against them and his release of the prisoners was cautiously welcomed, but his benevolence on its own was only worth so much. He could not pay the former militiamen and could not offer the Greeks any real protection if they tried to return to their ruined farms. Noting the terms of the 1736 Constitution, Theodore encouraged them to sign a pledge of loyalty to the Kingdom and himself as its king, noting that their property could not (legally) be seized if there were signed documents proving their status as loyal citizens. This was a bitter pill to swallow for the Greeks, who prided themselves on their fidelity to Genoa, but under considerable duress the three militia captains - even Busacci - agreed to sign the oath on behalf of the community. This ostensibly preserved their houses and whatever fields or other properties they possessed locally, but their weapons were not returned. Notwithstanding their new legal status of “loyal citizens,” the Busacci uprising demonstrated that they were clearly not to be trusted with arms. They would have to remain at Ajaccio for now, despite their loss of support and fears of destitution, as only in the city could they expect at least a modicum of safety. Theodore ordered Costa and Colonna to treat the Greeks with equity and protect them from seizures and reprisals, but that was all he could offer. The Greeks were left to anxiously face an uncertain future.
Theodore was in a much better mood, and the king spoke very favorably of the town and its surroundings. Although Ajaccio had its drawbacks, principally the poor defensive location and lack of water which had allowed the rebels to take it in the first place, it boasted many fine features. The large and sheltered bay was among the finest in Corsica, and it boasted extensive fertile fields and gentle hillsides covered in vineyards, olive groves, and citrus orchards. While malaria was present in the summer months - as it was practically everywhere on the Corsican coast - it was most acute at the marshy mouth of the Gravona and was not anywhere near as dangerous in Ajaccio itself as it was at Porto Vecchio (which was effectively a ghost town for half the year).
The king spent nearly two weeks at Ajaccio, which he spent touring the city and its environs, dining with his officers and the city council, and drawing up grand plans for future improvements as was Theodore’s fashion. He discussed his ideas for securing a new water source for the city with the elders, proposing that an aqueduct might be built for bringing the abundant waters of the Gravona, and visited some of the springs which the garrison had struggled to take control of during the siege. He visited local olive groves and orchards, but the trade which proved most interesting to the king was that of the coral fishermen.
Neapolitan coral fishermen at work
Theodore had been aware of the opportunities of the Corsican coral trade for some time - in fact it seems to have been one of the first things that interested him about Corsica. When Theodore arrived in Genoa in 1733 having recently shed his persona of von Syburg, he sent his faithful assistant Hamet to learn more about the Corsican coral trade. What exactly Hamet gleaned at this time is unknown, but a decade later Theodore had accumulated enough knowledge on the trade to know exactly what would win him the gratitude of its practitioners. He was aware, for instance, that considerable reefs off the Corsican coast were prohibited to the Corsicans by the Genoese government, and the Corsicans had been hampered in their attempt to sell to brokers in Livorno and Pisa because of export bans. At Ajaccio, Theodore drafted and signed an edict which legalized coral fishing in all Corsican waters and permitted the fishermen to trade with anyone they chose. Informed that coral fishing off Tunis had been disrupted by the fall of the Genoese outpost of Tabarka, Theodore also penned a letter to the Bey of Tunis suggesting a trade and fishing treaty, which also served to notify the Bey that he had conquered Ajaccio.
Like the fall of Bastia seven years before, the fall of Ajaccio would prove to be a landmark event in the Corsican Revolution, and in a similar manner. The capture of Bastia a mere two months after his arrival had galvanized Theodore’s precarious kingship, which had enjoyed the enthusiastic support of the delegates at Alesani but seemed at its outset to be a quixotic scheme which rested upon an unlikely monarch and a relatively modest investment of money and materiel. By accomplishing in eight weeks what the Corsicans had been unable to achieve on their own in more than six years, Theodore demonstrated not only his competence but his indispensability to the movement. It had taken years without his promised foreign aid, the inexorable advance of Europe’s most formidable army, and Theodore’s own prolonged exile from Corsica to wear down the luster of that achievement, and even in 1743 the residue of his accomplishment still commanded respect, if not always deference, from the Corsicans and their leaders. Now, once more finding his kingship on shaky ground, Theodore had produced another miracle, delivering another one of Genoa’s unconquerable fortresses into rebel hands. It was to prove just as heavy a blow to Giustiani's position as the commissioner-general feared.
Footnotes
[1] Filogenovesi militia belonging to official companies on the government's payroll.