France concluded a peace with Philip of Spain and his allies, and engaged to surrender Corsica to the Genoese. The French, accordingly, immediately put all the places they had garrisoned into the hands of Genoa, and embarked their troops. A desperate struggle had been maintained for six years to no purpose, diplomacy now lightly gamed away the earnings of that long war's bloody toil, and the Corsican saw himself hurled back into his old misery, and abandoned, defenceless, to Genoese vengeance, by a rag of paper, a pen-and-ink peace. This breach of faith was a crushing blow, and extorted from the country a universal cry of despair, but it was not listened to.
It was now that Sampiero began to show himself in all his greatness; for the man must be admitted to be really great whom adversity does not bend, but who gathers double strength from misfortune. He had quitted Corsica as an outlaw. The peace had taken the sword out of his hand; the island, ravaged and desolate from end to end, could not venture a new struggle on its own resources--a new war needed fresh support from a foreign power. For four years Sampiero wandered over Europe seeking help at its most distant courts; he travelled to France to Catherine, hoping to find her mindful of old services that he had done the house of Medici; he went to Navarre; to the Duke of Florence; to the Fregosi; to one Italian court after another; he sailed to Algiers to Barbarossa; he hastened to Constantinople to the Sultan Soliman. His stern, imposing demeanour, the emphatic sincerity of his speech, his powerful intellect, his glowing patriotism, everywhere commanded admiration and respect, among the barbarians not less than among the Christians; but they comforted him with vain hopes and empty promises.
While Sampiero was thus wandering with unwearied perseverance from court to court, inciting the princes to an enterprise in behalf of Corsica, Genoa had not lost sight of him; Genoa was alarmed to think what might one day be the result of his exertions. It was clearly necessary, by some means or other, to cripple once for all the dreaded arm of Sampiero. Poison and assassination, it is said, had been tried, but had failed. It was resolved to crush his spirit, by bringing his natural affection as a father and a husband into conflict with his passionate love of country. It was resolved to break his heart.