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Instead of taking them to the goal of the journey, as he had promised, he had deserted them in a miserable tavern by the way-side, among rough, godless lansquenets, as the mother of Moses abandoned her babe. And such a man as this, they had heard with amazement at Cologne, was permitted to boast of the favor of His Most Catholic Majesty, King Philip.
Count Oberstein, the German commander of the lansquenets, who while intoxicated had pledged himself to make common cause with the mutineers in the citadel, remembered his duty and remained faithful to the end. The regiment in which Hans Eitelfritz served, and the other companies of lansquenets, had succumbed to the temptation, and only waited the signal for revolt.
The Walloon carbineers, the German riders, and the French lancers, disputing as to the relative blame to be attached to each corps, began shooting and sabring each other, almost before they were out of the enemy's sight. Many were thus killed. The lansquenets were all put to the sword.
The tramp of steeds, the loud voices of men, the sound of drums and fifes were audible, then there was rattling, marching and shouting in the court-yard. "A room for the clerk of the muster-roll and paymaster!" cried a voice. "Gently, gently, children!" said the deep tones of the provost, who was the leader, counsellor and friend of the Lansquenets.
There was more than enough for him to do that day over yonder in the room occupied by the lansquenets and the city soldiers, where he usually directed affairs in person. It roused Dietel's ire. The cooking of The Blue Pike, which the landlady superintended, could vie with any in the Frank country, on the Rhine, or in Swabia, yet, forsooth, it wasn't good enough for the Nuremberg guests.
Lansquenets and other soldiers, mad with hunger and rage, when they could no longer find dogs to feed on, chased children through the streets, and were known in several instances to kill and devour them on the spot.
When they could they wreaked upon the lansquenets a vengeance as dreadful as what they had suffered, and were thus degraded to the same level of ferocity. Moral life was broken up. The Germany of Luther with its order and piety and domestic virtue, with its old ways and customs, even with its fashions of dress and furniture, perished almost as though it had been swallowed by an earthquake.
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