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Infanticide, Child Abandonment, and Female Honour in Nineteenth-Century Corsica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Stephen Wilson
Stephen Wilson
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University of East Anglia
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Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 1988 , pp. 762 - 783
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Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1988

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References

1 The most common determining factors in the first two categories seem to have been the inability of mothers in hunting and gathering societies to carry more than one child at a time, as among the Australian aborigines, and, more generally, the wish to reduce the number of females in the population, which was related in turn to marriage arrangements, as among some Eskimo tribes. Under the “religious” heading may be included the killing of twins, of children who were the fruit of miscegenation or who were ill-mened, and of first-born children, a custom in a number of African societies. The killing or exposure of deformed babies was also a religious as much as an economic imperative. See, for example, Sumner, William Graham, Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores and Morals (New York, 1960 [1906]), pp. 272–77;Google ScholarHutchinson, Walter, ed., Customs of the World: A Popular Account of the Manners, Rites and Ceremonies of Men and Women in All Countries (London, 1912–1914, 10, 12, 118, 144–45, 436, 797, 852, 892;Google ScholarHocart, A. M., “Infanticide,” Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (New York, 1932), VIII, 27–28;Google ScholarLeis, Philip E., “The Nonfunctional Attributes of Twin Infanticide in the Niger Delta,” Anthropological Quarterly, 38 (1965), 97–111;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRiches, David, “The Netsilik Eskimo: A Special Case of Selective Female Infanticide,” Ethnology, 13:4 (1974), 351–61;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Schire, Carmel andSteiger, William Lee, “A Matter of Life and Death: An Investigation into the Practice of Female Infanticide in the Arctic,” Man, n.s. 9:2 (1974), 161–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See, for example, Coleman, Emily R., “Medieval Marriage Characteristics: A Neglected Factor in the History of Medieval Serfdom,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2:2 (1971–1972), 205–19;CrossRefGoogle ScholarColeman, E. R., “L'Infanticide dans le Haut Moyen Age,” Annales, 29:2 (1974), 315–35;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sauer, R., “infanticide and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century Britain,” Population Studies, 32:1 (1978), 81–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

3 See, for example, J.-L. Flandrin, “L'Attitude é l'égard du petit enfant et les conduites sexuelles dans la civilisation occidentale, Structures anciennes et évolution,” Annales de Démographie Historique, 1973: Enfant et Sociétés, 143–210; and de Mause, Lloyd, “The Evolution of Childhood,” in The History of Childhood, de Mause, Lloyd, ed. (London, 1976), ch. 1, esp. 26–31.Google Scholar

4 Christians “do not expose their infants,” declared the anonymous Epistle to Diognetus, while the Epistle of Barnabas instructed: “Never do away with an unborn child or destroy it after its birth.” Staniforth, Maxwell, ed., Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers (Harmondsworth, 1968), 177, 217.Google Scholar Other world religions, of course, also forbade infanticide; see, for example, Levy, Reuben, The Social Structure of Islam (Cambridge 1965), 91–92.Google Scholar

5 For a full discussion and critique of this thesis, see Wilson, Stephen, “The Myth of Motherhood a Myth: The Historical View of European Child-rearing,” Social History, 9:2 (1984), 181–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 See, for example, Bergues, Hélène, La Prévention des naissances dans la famille: Ses origines dans les temps modernes, Institut National d'Etudes Démographiques, Travaux et Documents, Cahier 35, (Paris, 1960),Google Scholar ch. 6; Flandrin, “L'Attitude è l'égard du petit enfant,” 164–77; and Trexler, Richard C., “Infanticide in Florence: New Sources and First Results,” History of Childhood Quarterly, 1 (1973), 98–116.Google ScholarPubMed

7 See, for example, George, M. Dorothy, London Life in the Eighteenth Century (Harmondsworth, 1966 [1925]), 55–58Google Scholar and passim; Richard, Paul, “Les Enfants abandonnés è Auxerre de 1776 è 1796,” Bulletin de la Société des Sciences Historiques et Naturelles de l'Yonne, 99 (1961–1962), 5–16;Google Scholar M.-Cl. Murtin, , “Les Abandons d'enfants è Bourg et dans le département de l'Ain è la fin du XVIIIe siècle et dans la première moitié du XIXe,” Cahiers d'Histoire, 10 (1965), 135–66;Google ScholarRussell-Wood, A. J. R., Fidalgos and Philanthropists: The Santa Casa de Misericórdia of Bahia, 1550–1755 (London, 1968),CrossRefGoogle Scholar ch. 12; and Hoffer, Peter C. and Hull, N. E. H., Murdering Mothers: Infanticide in England and New England, Linden Studies in Anglo-American Legal History, New York University School of Law Series in Legal History, (New York and London, 1981) ch. 3 and p. 140. Hoffer and Hull point typically to the decline in indictments for infanticide in England and New England between 1700 and 1803 and suggest that abandonment to foundling hospitals may have replaced infanticide.Google Scholar

8 See Malcolmson, R. W., “Infanticide in the Eighteenth Century,” in Crime in England 1550–1800, Cockburn, J. S., ed. (London, 1977), ch. 8, esp. 204–6;Google Scholar and O. Ulbricht, “Infanticide in Eighteenth-Century Germany” (paper delivered at Eighth Research Seminar in German Social History, University of East Anglia, July 1985); also Brissaud, Y.-B., “L'Infanticide è la fin du Moyen Age, Ses Motivations psychologiques et sa repression,” Revue Historique de Droit Francais et Etranger, 50 (1972);Google Scholar and Wrightson, K., “Infanticide in Earlier Seventeenth-Century England,” Local Population Studies, 15 (Autumn 1975).Google Scholar

9 See Peristiay, J. G., ed., Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (London and Chicago, 1966);Google Scholar and Davis, J., People of the Mediterranean: An Essay in Comparative Social Anthropology (London, 1977), 89–101.Google Scholar

10 See Wilson, Stephen, Feuding, Conflict and Banditry in Nineteenth-Century Corsica (Cambridge, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Report, Inspector Battesti, 1861. Archives Dépaltmentales de la Corse du Sud (hereafter ADCS), Series X, ‘Assistance et Prévoyance Sririiale‘, ri.x. 37c (Rapports d'inspecteurs 1843–64); Gracieux Faure, Le Banditisme et les bandits célèbres de la Corse (1858), Vol. 1, 15; de Saint-Germain, Léonard, Itinéraire descriptif et hisrorique de la Corse (Paris, 1869), 229–30,Google Scholar 262; Letter, General Morand to Ministry of Justice, Bastia, 28 April 1809. Archives Nationales (hereafter AN) BB18 239; La Gazette des Tribunaux, 30 June 1827, reporting speech by the avocat-général; and Bournet, A., Une Mission en Corse: Notes d'anthropologie criminelle (Lyon, 1888), 19.Google Scholar

12 ADCS 4.M.88; and Robiquet, F., Recherches historiques et statistiques sur la Corse (Paris and Rennes, 1835), 415 and Table XLII.Google Scholar

13 Our main source of information, the transcripts of the Assize Court in Bastia (AN BB20), are only complete for the middle years of the century (from 1842 to 1865 with some gaps). From the 1840s (where transcripts for three and one half years are missing), there are five cases; from the 1850s (where those for nine months are missing), there are sixteen; and from the period 186065, there are twelve. Bourret cited an “official” figure of eighteen for the period 1876–85. See also C. Bernardini, “Bastia et sa région sous la Monarchic de Juillet (1830–1848),” II, Bulletin de la Société des Sciences Historiques et Naturelles de la Corse, (hereafter BSSHNC), no. 596 (1970), 18.

14 See Hoffer and Hull, Murdering Mothers, xviii, who find that “over 25 percent of all murders heard in the early modern English courts … were infanticides.” Hufton, Olwen H. discusses the incidence of infanticide in eighteenth-century France in The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France (Oxford, 1974), 123, 206, 326–27.Google Scholar

15 The impression gained from reading selected cases in La Gazette des Tribunaux (1832–48) is that infanticide in the early nineteenth century was probably rather less common in continental France than it was in Corsica. According to Levasseur, writing in La Grande Encyclopedia (Paris, 1887–1901), XX, 220 prosecutions were brought in France in 1889, when the total population was 38.5 million. See also Annuaire Statistique de la France (1899), 558 (for 1896); and (1921), 93 (for 1919). Sauer gives annual rates for England and Wales ranging from 78 to over 200 per annum in the 1850s and 1860s for a total population of between 18 and 20 million. Franco Ferracuti et al. compute that 1.3 cases per annum were tried in the period 1800–29 in Sardinia, stressing “honour” as the prime motive) (La Violenza in Sardegna [Rome, 1970], Quaderni di Psicologia, 5, Appendix B, Table I). The population of Corsica was about 230,000 in 1850; see Lefebvre, Paul, “Situation démographique du département de la Corse,” Etudes Gorses, 74: (1954), 12, 15; Lefebvre, La Population de la Corse,' Revue de Géographie Alpine, 45: (1957), 560; and M. Caisson et al., Pieve e Poesi, Communautés rurales Corses (Paris, 1978), Annexe, 1, 289–96.Google Scholar

16 See J.-B.-C. Picot, Nouveau Manuel pratique et complet du Code Napoléon expliqué (Paris, 1864), esp. 568–68; Levasseur, La Grande Encyclopedie; and Hufton, The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France, 321–22, on the 1556 law and its operation.

17 Draft circular to mayors, April 1852, ADCS 3.x.37c.

18 That is, it was mitigated by allowing extenuating circumstances or bringing prosecutions and convictions on lesser charges.

19 Two rape cases tried at the Assize Court in 1861, for example, involved three victims who were minors. AN BB20 229.

20 See Hufton, , The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France, 349–51Google Scholar; Malcolmson, , “Infanticide,” 192Google Scholar; Hoffer & Hull, Murdering Mothers, 95ff., 145Google Scholar; and Ulbricht, “Infanticide”; also La Gazette des Tribunaux for France as a whole, 1832–48.Google Scholar

21 For example, Malcoimson, “Infanticide,” 202–6; and Ulbricht, “Infanticide.”

22 The mayor of Poggio-di-Tallano testified in 1846, for example, at the trial of a young woman accused of killing her lover, that she had a doubtful reputation since “she exercised the profession of a dressmaker and received a lot of people in her house.” La Gazette des Tribunaux, 12 08 1846.Google Scholar

23 English obstetrical manuals from the seventeenth century onwards gave instructions on the care of the umbilical cord; see Cunnington, Phillis and Lucas, Catherine, Costume for Births, Marriages and Deaths (London, 1972), 27Google Scholar, 31. Their continental equivalents presumably did the same. There was also an extensive folklore related to the proper disposal of the umbilical cord; see Loux, Françoise, Le jeune enfant et son corps dans la médecine traditionnelle (Paris, 1978), 129–34.Google Scholar This suggests that failure to tie the cord can rarely have been the result of ignorance. Lebrun mentions umbilical tetanus as a significant cause of infant deaths in Anjou, and he and Chaunu attribute the diesease to the midwives' practice of cutting the cord with dirty fingernails; but neither refers to bleeding. See Lebrun, François, Les Hommes et la mort en Anjou au 17e et 18e siècles, Essai de démographie et de psychologie historiques (Paris and The Hague, 1971), 186Google Scholar; and Chaunu, Pierre, La Mort è Paris, XVIe, XVIIe et XV111e siècles (Paris, 1978), 172Google Scholar. Hoffer and Hull, Murdering Mothers, 88, refer to a probable case of haemorrhage at York in 1803.Google ScholarRose, Lionel, The Massacre of the Innocents: Infanticide in Britain, 1800–1939 (London, 1986), suggests that a torn umbilical cord “was one of the signs of infanticide looked for in Middlesex in the 1860s” (p. 65).Google Scholar

24 This seems to have been more common in other contexts; see, e.g., Brissaud, “L'Infanticide è la fin du Moyers Age,” 240–2.

25 AN BB20 185 (1st session 1856).

26 For parallels, see Ulbricht, “Infanticide;” and Riet, Didier “Infririticide et Société au XVIIIe siècle, Bruits publics et rumeurs dans la communauté,” Ethnologie Française 16:4 (1986).Google Scholar

27 Case v. Antonio Corteggiani, Francesco-Maria Ferracci and Santa Feriacci. AN BB20 170 (1st session 1854). Incest was also suspected in this case.

28 AN BB20 185 (4th session 1856); see also Case v. Maria-Antonietta Casile in the same session.

29 AN BB20 273 (2nd session 1865).

30 AN BB20 185 (1st session 1856).

31 AN BB20 221 (3rd session 1860).

32 It was subsequently established that Rosa-Angelica had indeed given birth, and that her mother had assisted at the delivery and in killing the child. AN BB20 221 (2nd session 1860).

33 The older woman apparently killed the child by “violently pressing its head,” though the girl claimed that it had been stillborn. AN BB20 249 (1st session 1863).

34 In the event the report appears to have been false and malicious, and the case is not included in our forty-seven. Letter, Prririureur-général, Golo, to Minister of Justice, 18 Thermidor An XIII, AN BB20 238.

35 She was prosecuted for infanticide, because the child disappeared following her delivery, but was acquitted when post-mortem examination indicated that the baby had been several months premature. AN BB20 164 (Extraordinary session 1853); and AN BB20 170 (1st session 1854).

36 Medical examination, however, indicated that the baby had been born “viable,” and Saveria was convicted of “homicide through imprudence.”

37 La Gazette des Tribunaux, 30 06 1827.Google Scholar

38 Case v. Domenico-Maria Canioni, Ignazio Luigi, and Gerolamo Colombani. AN BB20 221 (1st session 1860).

39 The case eventually came before the Assize Court. AN BB20 194 (3rd session 1857).

40 Guilia-Maria and the Panzani brothers were tried in 1863 and 1865 for infanticide. She was acquitted. Paolo-Francesco was convicted but given a lenient sentence of only five years' imprisonment, while Giulio-Stafano, who had gone into hiding for a period, was also acquitted. AN BB20 249 (2nd session 1863); and AN BB20 273 (1st session 1865).

41 Cases v. Paolo-Emilio Carlotti, Michele-Antonio Renucci, and Paolo-Vincente Angelini; and v. Giova-Battiste Denobili, AN BB20 130 (3rd and 4th sessions 1845).

42 For example, Cases v. Angelo-Maria Coscioli and Maria-Clorinda Comiti. AN BB20 185 (2nd session 1856) (San-Andrea-di-Tallano); and v. Antonio-Nero Renucci, Dr. Giacomo-Francesco Carli and Mario-Agostino Marchetti, AN BB20 229 (3rd session 1861) (Feliceto).

43 This contrasts with the situation revealed by a case in Normandy in 1833, for example, in which a midwife was accused of “procuring numerous abortions for young girls”; La Gazette des Tribunaux, 4–502 1833.Google Scholar It contrasts as well with that in societies, European and non-European, in which abortions were brought about or attempted through the practice of secret women's lore; see, for example, Bergues, “La Prevention,” ch. 5; Porter, Enid, Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore (London, 1969), 10–11Google Scholar, 51; Loux, , 34–38;Google Scholar and Mead, Margaret, Letters from the Field, 1925–1975 (New York, 1977), 121Google Scholar (on the Mountain Arapesh). All of this would suggest that Corsican women had perhaps “internalized” notions of female honour to a greater degree than is suggested, for example, by Comiti, S., “La Corse du Sud, Essai de geographic physique et humaine,” BSSHNC, 502–13 (1933), 242–43.Google Scholar

44 The Feliceto case involved a doctor and a medical student; the Corte pharmacist also recommended bleeding and footbaths.

45 For an interesting parallel, see Brian Juan O'Neill, “Dying and Inheriting in Trás-osMontes,” in Death in Portugal: Studies in Portugese Anthropology and Modern History, Rui Feijo et al., eds., Journal of the Anthropological Sririiety of Oxford, Occasional Papers, no. 2, (Oxford, 1983), esp. 68–72.

46 Case v. Maria-Felicia Franchini, Cour Impériale, Ajaccio, January 1813. ADCS 2.U.1/43.

47 See Wilson, Stephen, “Conflict and Its Causes in Southern Corsica, 1800–1835,” Social History, 6:1 (1981), 55–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Report, , 4 08 1860, ADCS 3.x.37c.Google Scholar

49 “Respect for women is the basis for all other customs,” Malaspina wrote in 1876; “one could say that it has created the vendetta,” Toussaint Malaspina, “La Corse, Moeurs et coutumes,” Revue Politique et Littéraire (Revue des Cours Littéraires), 2d ser., 6 (October 1876), 372.

50 Case v. Giacomo-Antono Sanmarcelli, AN BB20 185 (3rd session 1856). He failed to keep his promise, and the young woman brought an unsuccessful prosecution against him for rape.

51 AN BB20 260 (2nd session 1864); see also Case v. Michele Giacobetti. AN BB20 204 (2nd session 1858).

52 See Casanova, S. B., Histoire de l'Eglise Corse (Zicavo, 1931–38), III, 261Google Scholar; IV, 75–77; Emile, and Franceschini, Jules, “La Corse sous l'administration de M. de Vignolle,” BSSHNC, 385–88 (1918), 56Google Scholar; Journal du Dépaririement de la Corse, 10:35 (1 09 1827)Google Scholar; ADCS 1.x.60. “Dépôt des Enfants trouvés d'Ajaccio, Administration 1837–49”; and Annuaire du Département de la Corse (1877). The tour was a revolving receptacle in which babies could be deposited anonymously. About 160 were in operation in France in the mid-nineteenth century; see Léon Lallemand, Histoire des enfants abandonnés et délaissés, Etudes sur la protection de l'enfance aux diverses époques de la civilisation (Paris, 1885), 271–78Google Scholar, 666–87; Bergues, , “La Prevention,” 169–70Google Scholar; Richard, , “Les Enfants Abadonnes,” p. 6Google Scholar: Murtin, “Les Abandons d'enfats,” 159–62Google Scholar; Russell-Wood, Fidalgos and Philanthropists, 295; and Langer, William L., “Infanticide: A Historical Survey,” History of Childhood Quarterly 1 (1974), 358–59.Google ScholarPubMed

53 ” See, for example, Reports, Inspector Carlotti, 29 August 1842, 3 June 1843, 30 August 1846, and 13 August 1851. ADCS 3.x.37c.

54 These and figures for Tables 1 and 2 are compiled from data in ADCS 3.x.rilri and 3.x.37c. Legitimate orphans have been excluded from our calculations.

55 According to Father Casanova, there were 265 “enfants triouvés” in Corsica in 1779, of which 243 were under seven (Casanova, Histoire, III, 261). The prefect reported 86 new “enfants trouvés” in the first half of 1810, ADCS 1.M.112.

56 Over 100 children were in care at Ajaccio already in 1827. The numbers declined somewhat in the 1830s, but by the 1840s the total was around 100 again, rising to a maximum in 1861. Bastia had larger numbers of children than elsewhere, almost certainly a reflection of the popularity of the tour. Numbers reached 200 in the mid-1840s, rising to over 400 at the middle of the century. There was some decline during the 1850s, with a new peak in 1861 and then a perceptible fall. Numbers at Calvi rose from 60 in 1844 to over 100 at the middle of the century, remaining at or slightly above this level into the 1860s with no decline until later. Cone's numbers rose similarly from around 60 in the early 1840s to 100 or more at the middle of the century, but they then fell off somewhat in the 1850s. Sartène was by far the smallest hospice in terms of numbers and experienced no marked change over the two decades.

57 A total population of about 230,000 in 1850 and about 250,000 in 1860 has been assumed here; see note 15.

58 Report, , Inspector Carlotti, 12 11 1847; and Letter, Mayor, Calvi, to Procureur Impérial, 14 March 1853, ADCS 3.x.37c.Google Scholar

59 See note 42; and also Fée, A. L. A., Voceri, , Chants populaires de la Corse, précédés d'une Excursion faite dans cetle île en 1845 (Paris and Strasbourg, 1850), 47. Bonifacio, too, had a reputation for lax sexual morality, but this is not reflected in our materials.Google Scholar

60 Child abandonment was not unknown in feuding villages in all parts of Corsica. Cases are reported in the period up to 1853 at Albitreccia, Cauro, Eccica-Suarella, Fozzao, Frasso, Levie, Moca-Croce, Occhiataa, Oletta, Olmeto, Petreto-Bicchisao, San-Gavino, Santa-Maria-Sicche and Tavera. We should also note Patin de La Fizelière's comment around 1780 on the large number of illegitimate sons of nobles in the Sartène area; see “Mémoire sur la province et juridiction de Saréne ou de La Rocca,” Corse Historique, 9–10 (1963), 70, 79.Google Scholar

61 As we have noted, specifically female infanticide was practised in various societies, for example in the Arab world and at ancient Rome. It probably occurred in parts of Europe, too, during the Middle Ages and the early modern period, though perhaps selective neglect was more important; see Coleman, “Medieval Marriage Characteristics,” and “L'Infaticide”; Herlihy, David, “Life Expectancies for Women in Medieval Sririiety,” in The Role of Women in the Middle Ages, Rosmarie Thee Morewedge, ed. (London, 1975), 4, 6Google Scholar, 14; and Letts, Malcom, ed., The Travels of Leo of Rozmital (Cambridge, 1957), Hakluyt Society, 2d ser., CVIII, 113, where a fifteenth-century Bohemian traveller writes significantly: “In the country of Portugal there are many strange customs. When girls are born they see to it that the children seldom die.”Google Scholar

62 For example, Extract from Régistre d'Etat-civil, Morosaglia, 10 November 1849, ADCS 1.x.60; and Archives Départementales de la Haute Corse E.18.26 (Venzolasca, Correspondence).

63 Declaration by Giacobbi, Mayor of Serraggio, 18 02 1848; Extract, Régistre d'Etatcivil, Corte, 9 October 1849; Declaration by mayor of Castirlá, 29 March 1849, ADCS 1.x.60.Google Scholar

64 Declarations by mayors of Ajaccio, 1818–25, An X, An XII, An XIII, and 1807–11, ADCS 3.x.31c.

65 Reports, ADCS 3.x.37c.

66 For examples, see Richard, , “Les Enfants abandonés,” 15Google Scholar; Russell-Wood, , Fidalgos and Philanthropists, 308;Google Scholar and Hufton, , The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France, 333–34.Google Scholar

67 For example: “…and then there came before us the widow Angelina Mariani and declared that she wished to feed and care for the said child with diligence; and, having ascertained that the said Angelina was a good woman and capable of feeding the child, we entrusted it to her and made her responsible for it” (Declaration by mayor of Castifao, 18 October 1849, ADCS 1.x.60). This declaration is of further interest, since it suggests either that the widow Mariani was able to breast-eed the child herself (which is most likely and means that she was almost certainly the baby's mother), or that it was believed that a newborn child could be fed other than at the breast.

68 Putting out was administratively much simpler but should also be related to the very high rate of mortality among foundlings that has been noted in most studies: Richard, for example, finds 78 percent (”Les Enfants abandonnés,” 12); and Chamoux, A. calculates 45–47 percent in “L'Enfance abandoririée è Reims è la frin du XVIIIe siécle,” Annales de Démographie Historique, 1973, 276–79. Inspector Carlotti estimated that for the years 1845–49 the mortality rate among children taken into care in the arrondissements of Bastia, Calvi, and Corte was 55 percent, compared with a rate of 17 percent for “normal” children reared by their own parents, but rates in the 1860s seem to have been only half this high. Mortality was likely to be highest in any centralized and crowded institution. This factor would have kept down numbers surviving in the dépôt but must also have discouraged the authorities from keeping many children there in the first place.Google Scholar

69 Reports, Inspector Versin, 1848; and Inspector Carlotti, 1848–50, ADCS 3.x.37c; see also Report, Prefect, 1810, ADCS I.M.112.

70 Reports, Inspector Carlotti, 1842, 1847, and 1849–50; Inspector Versini 1848; and Inspector Battesti, 1861, ADCS 3.ri.37c.

71 This is conveyed, for example, in proverbs, such as: “Forza di roba o forza di ghiente é a ricchezza” [Abundance of goods or of relatives is wealth]; or: “I parent is identi”[Kinsmen are teeth[. Filippi, J. M., Recueil de sentences et dictons usités en Corse (Paris, 1906), 16, 14.Google Scholar

72 see Francis Pompon, “La Femme Corse: Approhe monographique et démographique du problème,” special issue on “Femme corses et femmes méditerranéennes,” Etudes Corses, n.s., 4:6–7 (1976),Google Scholar 344–45; Caisson et al., Pieve a Paesi, Annexe 2; and Renucci, Janine, Corse traditionelle et Corse nouvelle (Lyon, 1974), 106Google Scholar, 124. Saint-German noted in 1869 that couples married young and had many children; while Charles Maurras was struck in 1898 by the large numbers of children whom he saw in Ajaccio and commented that the Corsicans, unlike the continental French, were “an obstinately populous race.” Saint-Germain, , “Itinérarire,” 229–30Google Scholar; and Maurras, Charles, Anthinéa, D'Athénés a Florence (Paris, 1920), 142–44.Google Scholar

73 Comiti, 238; and Casts, François J., ‘L'Eglise corse et la Femme’, Etudes Corses, n.s. 4, Nos. 6–7 (1976), pp. 299–300.Google Scholar

74 See Colucci, Edith Southwell, Canti popolari corsi (Leghorn, 1933), 167Google Scholar; and Christophari, Théophile, La Corse de mon enfance (Paris 1981), 176–77.Google Scholar

75 Over 200 people attended the wake of a child aged eighteen months at Ciamannacce in July 1842, which caused the floor of the house to collapse. Report, Gendarmerie, Ajaccio, 18 July 1842, ADCS 4.ri.126.