



Produced by Paul Haxo from page images generously made
available by Google and the Bodleian Library.





THE
CORSICAN BROTHERS

A NOVEL

BY
ALEXANDRE DUMAS

TRANSLATED BY HENRY FRITH

LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET
1880


LONDON:
PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER,
MILFORD LANE, STRAND, W.C.


TO
HENRY IRVING
THE LATEST REPRESENTATIVE OF THE TWIN BROTHERS
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY
THE TRANSLATOR



THE
CORSICAN BROTHERS.

CHAPTER I.

IN the beginning of March, 1841, I was travelling in Corsica.

Nothing is more picturesque and more easy to accomplish than a journey
in Corsica. You can embark at Toulon, in twenty hours you will be in
Ajaccio, and then in twenty-four hours more you are at Bastia.

Once there you can hire or purchase a horse. If you wish to hire a
horse you can do so for five francs a-day; if you purchase one you can
have a good animal for one hundred and fifty francs. And don't sneer
at the moderate price, for the horse hired or purchased will perform
as great feats as the famous Gascon horse which leaped over the Pont
Neuf, which neither Prospero nor Nautilus, the heroes of Chantilly and
the Champ de Mars could do. He will traverse roads which Balmat
himself could not cross without _crampons,_ and will go over bridges
upon which Auriol would need a balancing pole.

As for the traveller, all he has to do is to give the horse his head