156 A WARLIKE CURATE [^ET. 33
Sartene, and is surrounded with chestnut trees. The village contains 400 men fit to bear arms. We stopped at the curate's, the Abb£ Chiarone, whose brother, Michel Antoni, recollects me. He had served as a sergeant at Calvi, and was discontented that he had not been made an officer in one of the battalions. The road from Aulla to Lacera winds along the side of the mountains. From the neighbourhood of Aulla you see the countries of Istria and Ornano as far as the sea. The road is through woods of chestnut, oaks, pines, and myrtle arbutus, and other beautiful shrubs, magnificent rocks, water rushing down them. In the evening we reached Zievo, a considerable village, and most delightfully situated. Abbatucci, a principal leader who took the part of the Kepublic, is from Zievo. From Zievo our route led to Ghisoni through the Foce di Verde, and from that over the mountain of Sorba to Vivario, where we stopped with my old friend the curate Pantalucci.
At the commencement of the [Revolution Abbatucci assembled a force at Zievo in favour of the Republic. This caused great alarm; a body of men marched from Ajaccio to Ornano, and letters were despatched to all quarters to collect a force there to march against Abbatucci. The curate Pantalucci, among others, was directed to send the Militia of his village to Ornano. Instead of obeying this order he took upon himself to send his brother with 100 men over the mountains, which we crossed by Ghisoni, at a time when from snow they were deemed impassable. This small force, appearing suddenly from so unexpected a quarter, while the attention of -the enemy was turned another way towards Ornano, alarmed Abbatucci's party so much that they dispersed, and he himself was obliged to fly. Had Pantalucci obeyed literally the orders sent to him, the event might have been exactly the reverse. The country by Ornano is so difficult, that Abbatucci would most probably have defeated any force attempting to approach that way. With a regular army, an officer commanding at Vivario would probably not have been sufficiently acquainted with the country to have thought of moving asher wasppointments at the