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Updated: June 30, 2025
Glory, sweet as it was to him, lost its value, if unaccompanied by the consciousness of desert which stamps it as honor. It is, therefore, not so much for personal achievement as for revelation of character that this siege has interest in his life. Besides the defences of the town proper, Calvi was protected by a series of outworks extending across the neck of land upon which it lay.
At Calvi, in 1794, he had lost an eye. At Teneriffe his right arm was shattered and amputated close to the shoulder. At the battle of the Nile he was severely wounded in the head.
"Yet I know one sailor who's not above paying his respects to his Maker and that's Lord Nelson, of whom you may have heard. Seen him myself in the trenches at Calvi. I remember a great buck of a Dragoon Guardsman asking him, "'Why d'you pray, little man? 'Why, says Nelson, simple as a child, 'because mother taught me. Yes, sir," fiercely, "and that's why I pray and jolly good reason too."
'You have made it all very clear, and you may retire for the present. The young lady is naturally overcome by the bad news, and would rather be alone with me for a little while, I daresay. Signor Calvi rose, made a profound obeisance to the Princess, scarcely bent his head to Angela, and retired, apparently bowing to the family chairs as he passed each.
The chief strongholds of that island were the fortified towns of San Fiorenzo, Bastia, and Calvi. These towns are near each other, and as the troops scornfully rejected his summons to surrender, the commodore was placed in a difficulty.
What a nature must that be whose temper can resist such treatment, with the added misery of enforced idleness and inaction. And yet Theodore Calvi, a Corsican, now twenty-seven years of age, muffled, as it were, in a shroud of absolute reserve, had for two months held out against the effects of this dungeon and the insidious chatter of the prisoner placed to entrap him.
Upon our right a continuous chain of hills reared themselves, thickly wooded to their very summits; while in our rear Calvi, although something like thirty miles distant, was clearly distinguishable. But the redoubt was with us the chief point of interest.
Whatever their numbers, thus to surrender touch of them at the beginning was an evident mistake, for which, as for most mistakes, a penalty had in the end to be paid; and in fact, if the relief of Calvi was the object of the sortie, the place to fight was evidently as far from there as possible.
However, this youth, under the diligent attentions of police spies, was soon seen and identified as an escaped convict, the famous hero of the Corsican vendetta, the handsome Theodore Calvi, known as Madeleine.
As it was shown that Calvi's mistress, implicated in the case, had spent about a thousand francs since the date of the crime and the day when Calvi tried to pledge the plate and trinkets, the evidence seemed strong enough to commit Calvi and the girl for trial.
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