Lefebvre had already entered Innsbruck, and, according to his brutal custom, had plundered the villages and reduced them to ashes; he had also published a proscription-list[10] instead of the amnesty. A desperate resistance now commenced. The whole of the Tyrol again flew to arms; the young men placed in their green hats the bunch of rosemary gathered by the girl of their heart, the more aged a peacock's plume, the symbol of the house of Habsburg, all carried the rifle, so murderous in their hands; they made cannons of larch-wood, bound with iron rings, which did good service; they raised abatis, blew up rooks, piled immense masses of stone on the extreme edges of the precipitous rocks commanding the narrow vales, in order to hurl them upon the advancing foe, and directed the timber-slides in the forest-grown mountains, or those formed of logs by means of which the timber for building was usually run into the valleys, in such a manner upon the most important passes and bridges, as to enable them to shoot enormous trees down upon them with tremendous velocity. Lefebvre resolved to advance with the main body of his forces across the Brenner to Botzen, whither another corps under Burscheidt also directed its way through the upper valley of the Inn, the Finstermunz, and Meran, while a third under Rusca came from Carinthia through the Pusterthal, and a fourth under Peyry was on the march from Verona through the vale of the Adige. These various _corps d'armée_, by which the Tyrol was thus attacked simultaneously on every point, were to concentrate in the heart of the country. Lefebvre found the Brenner open. The Tyrolese, headed by Haspinger, had burned the bridges on the Oberau and awaited the approach of the enemy on the heights commanding the narrow valley of Eisach. The Saxons under Rouyer were sent in advance by Lefebvre to shed their blood for a foreign despot. Rocks and trees hurled by the Tyrolese into the valley crushed numbers of them to death. Rouyer, after being slightly hurt by a rolling mass of rock, retreated after leaving orders to the Saxon regiment, composed of contingents from Weimar, Gotha, Coburg, Hildburghausen, Altenburg, and Meiningen, commanded by Colonel Egloffstein, to retain its position in the Oberau. This action took place on the 4th of August. The Saxons, worn out by the fatigue and danger to which they were exposed, were compelled, on the ensuing day, to make head in the narrow vale against overwhelming numbers of the Tyrolese, whose incessant attacks rendered a moment's repose impossible. Although faint with hunger and with the intensity of the heat, a part of the troops under Colonel Egloffstein succeeded in forcing their way through, though at an immense sacrifice of life,[11] and fell back upon Rouyer, who had taken up a position at Sterzing without fighting a stroke in their aid, and who expressed his astonishment at their escape. The rest of the Saxon troops were taken prisoners, after a