United States or Spain ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A sharp war broke out, and the Swiss city of Lucerne took the opportunity of destroying the Austrian castle of Rothemburg, where the tolls had been particularly vexatious, and of admitting to their league the cities of Sempach and Richensee. Leopold and all the neighboring nobles united their forces.
In 1356, seventy years after Morgarten, the Austrians made another attempt to bring the brave mountaineers into subjection. An army of nine thousand men, the best trained soldiers of the empire, under the lead of the Archduke Leopold, invaded the country. To these the confederates opposed a force of fourteen hundred. They met in a valley near the lake of Sempach.
Doubtless all this will find an accomplished, and possibly an impartial, historian. Its significance for these personal memoirs is due chiefly to the accidental fact that, whereas my mother was the social centre of the orthodox party and in that capacity gave solid aid to Hammerfeldt, the unorthodox gathered round the Countess von Sempach.
Sempach murmured gratification; Hammerfeldt smiled. I was vaguely conscious of a subdued sensation running all through the company, but my mind was occupied with the contrast between this finished woman and the little girl I had left behind. From feeling old, too old, sad, and knowing for poor little Elsa, I was suddenly transported into an oppressive consciousness of youth and rawness.
At the head of a large and well-appointed force, and attended by many distinguished knights and nobles, he marched into the mountain region and advanced upon Sempach, one of the revolted towns, resolved, he said, to punish its citizens with a rod of iron for their daring rebellion.
They had seen in Hammerfeldt my schoolmaster; his hand was gone, and could no longer guide or restrain me. To one a son, to the other a younger brother, by both I was counted incapable of standing alone or choosing my own path. Hammerfeldt was gone; Wetter remained; the Countess von Sempach remained. There was the new position.
Hatred and contempt of the Swiss, as low-born and presumptuous, spurred them on; and twenty messengers reached the Duke in one day, with promises of support, in his march against Sempach and Lucerne. He had sent a large force in the direction of Zurich with Johann Bonstetten, and advanced himself with 4,000 horse and 1,400 foot upon Sempach.
"You're as well up in the arrangements as Bederhof himself." "I have cause. Whence come you, sire?" "From paying a visit to the Countess von Sempach." He burst into a laugh, but the look in his eyes forbade me to be offended. "That's very whimsical too," he observed. "There's a smack of repetition about this. Is fate hard-up for new effects?" "There's variety enough here for me.
She turned her eyes from Wetter to my face. "You're going to be married very soon?" she said. "In a month," said I. "I'm having my last fling. You perceived our high spirits?" "I've seen her picture. She's pretty. And I've seen the Countess von Sempach." "You know about her?" "Have you forgotten that you used to speak of her? Ah, yes, you've forgotten all that you used to say!
It appears in the well-known form, but the hero is stated to be "ein getrüwer man under den Eidgenozen," no name being given, and it seems clear that his death did not take place at that time. BALLADS. There are several war songs on the battle of Sempach which have come down to us, but in one only is there mention of Winkelried and his deed.
Word Of The Day