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Updated: June 14, 2025
The two Tell's chapels; the Rütli; the villages of Schwiz, Altdorf, Brunnen, Beckenried, Stans, and Sarnen; the battlefields of Morgarten and Sempach; and on a clear day the ruined castle of Hapsburg itself, lie within a mighty circle at one's feet.
The decisive and brilliant battle of Sempach, the second of the long roll of victories that mark the prowess of the Swiss, is thus described by an old writer: "The Swiss order of battle was angular, one soldier followed by two, these by four, and so on.
It needed no arguing, and he gave it none; the spirit that inspired also vindicated it. I could not help recalling the agonies and struggles which my passion for the Countess von Sempach had occasioned me. At first I thought that I would tell him about this affair, but I found myself ashamed.
I appeared to have no suspicion of the good faith of his suggestion, and said, with an air of surprise: "Max von Sempach! Why, how is he suitable?" With great gravity he gave me many reasons, proving not that Max was very suitable, but that everybody else was profoundly unsuitable, except the unmentioned candidate whose name was so well understood between us.
"I was not entitled to congratulate you officially." "You have raised a mountain of misconception about me in Forstadt," I complained. "A mountain-top is a suitable regal seat, and perhaps the only safe one." "Won't you speak plainly to me?" "Yes, if it's your pleasure." "I have least of it of any pleasure in the world." "Well, then, the Countess von Sempach grows no younger." "No?"
At last, just as Carl von Sempach had begun to consider where on earth he could sketch the tree from next, and to ponder seriously upon the feasibility of climbing up into it and taking it from that point of view, a trifling accident occurred which gave him the opportunity of making Bertha's acquaintance, which, I don't mind stating confidentially, was the very thing he had been waiting for.
And how in that same year Duke Albrecht met with a bloody end, such as befell no King or Emperor of the Germans before or after him, at the hands of Duke John, his nephew, whose inheritance he had kept back, and other conspirators; and what vengeance overtook the murderers; and how Duke John, escaping in the habit of a monk into Italy, was no more heard of, but became a shadow forever, like the rest of them; and how, eight years afterwards, came the expedition of Duke Leopold of Austria against the Waldstätte, and the fight at Morgarten, where the Swiss, thirteen hundred mountaineers in all, Wilhelm Tell among them, routed twenty thousand of the well-armed chivalry of Austria, dating from that heroic Thermopylae of theirs the foundation of the Swiss Confederacy, as, larger and perhaps not less resolute, we see it to-day, ready to defy, if need be, single-handed, the greatest military nation of the earth; and how, thirty years afterwards, the men of Schwyz and Uri go forth, nine hundred strong, among them Tell, and Werner Stauffacher, now bent with years, to the aid of Bern, threatened by the nobles roundabout; and how, in 1332, was formed the league with Lucerne, whereby the beautiful lake gets its name as the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons; and how, one sultry July day in 1386, the men of Schwyz and Uri and Unterwalden, together with other Swiss, some of them armed with the very halberds with which their fathers defended the pass at Morgarten, fought again their hereditary enemy, Austria, by the clear waters of the little Lake of Sempach; how, when they saw the enemy, they fell upon their knees, according to their ancient custom, and prayed to God, and then with loud war-cry dashed at full run upon the Austrian host, whose shields were like a dazzling wall, and their spears like a forest, and the Mayor of Lucerne with sixty of his followers went down in the shock, but not a single one of the Austrians recoiled; and how at that critical, dreadful moment, for the flanks of the enemy's phalanx were advancing to encompass them, there suddenly strode forth the Knight Arnold Strutthan von Winkelried, crying, "I will make a path for you! care for my wife and children!" and, rushing forward, grasped several spears and buried them in his breast, a large, strong man, he bore the soldiers down with him as he fell, and his companions pushed forward over his dead body into the midst of the host, and the victory was won, and another book was added to the epic story of the men of Schwyz and Uri and Unterwalden; and how Duke Leopold fell fighting bravely, as became his house, and six hundred and fifty nobles with him, so that there was mourning at the Court of Austria for many a year, and men said it was a judgment upon the reckless spirit of the nobles; and how Martin Malterer, standard-bearer, of Freyburg in the Breisgau, happening to come upon Leopold as he was dying, was as one petrified, and the banner fell from his hands, and he threw himself across the body of Leopold to save it from further outrage, waiting for and finding his own death there; and how this ruinous contest between Switzerland and Austria was not finally closed till the time of Maximilian, in 1499, when first the right of private war was abolished in Germany; and how, through the various fortunes of the succeeding centuries, the character of the Swiss has remained for the most part the same as in the earlier time: these things one may read at large elsewhere; but we hasten to the conclusion.
Geoffrey would wish me to show favour, or at least impartiality, toward Liberal opinions; for the sake of such a manifestation he might overlook certain objections and acquiesce in my giving the Embassy to Wetter. But with what face would he hear an honest statement of the case that Wetter was to have the Embassy because the King desired to please Countess von Sempach?
There we left her curtseying, while the Count handed my mother into the carriage. I looked round, and the Countess blew me a surreptitious kiss. When we had driven a little way, my mother said: "Do you like the Countess von Sempach?" "Yes, very much." "She was kind to you?" "Very, mother." "Then why have you been crying, Augustin?"
His unswerving loyalty and patriotism were always conspicuous, and of such a lofty character that had circumstances rendered the sacrifice necessary he would have unhesitatingly followed the glorious example of the Swiss hero of Sempach, who gave his life to his country six hundred years ago.... He was too stately in his manners and too exacting in his discipline that power which Carnot calls 'the glory of the soldier and the strength of armies. A brief anecdote will illustrate the strictness of his discipline.
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