You have heard of the tears of joy that were shed when our banners were seen approaching to your walls; you knew what Erlach said after the victory, ‘This day shall be an everlasting pledge of our union.’ From that day we have been allies. Men of Berne, sons of the conquerors of Laupen, we are now involved in great difficulties; the power of Austria, to which Zuric has basely surrendered, bears hard upon us; numbers of ours have perished within these few days, and our enemies expect great reinforcements from distant parts. We may be overpowered. Dear trusty Confederates, Need is the test of friendship.”[37] The name and recollection of Laupen had power to overrule the suggestions of prudence; the required succours were sent, and the Swiss were victorious. Two of the many gallant struggles made by the Swiss in defence of their liberty have already been described. A third, the battle of St. Jaques, near Basle, has been called the Swiss Thermopylæ; and the name is justified, not by the circumstances of the battle, but by the indomitable courage and uniform fate of the conquered. The Dauphin of France, afterwards Louis XI., at the head of a large army of the mercenary troops called Armagnacs, from the Counts D’Armagnac, two of their chiefs, advanced against Basle for the purpose of breaking up the council of the church then sitting there in defiance of the Pope, and to assist Frederic of Austria, the Emperor of Germany, in recovering the possessions in Switzerland which his ancestors had lost. His force consisted of 8000 English and 14,000 French, and was still further increased by the vassals of Austria. Sixteen hundred men were detached by the Swiss with orders to throw themselves into Basle at all hazards. Two of the members of the council, returning from the city, met them on the eve before the battle, and informed them of the strength of the enemy and the difficulty of reaching Basle. They replied, “If things must needs so happen to–morrow, and we cannot break by force through the said obstacles, we will consign our souls to God, and our bodies to the Armagnacs.” They advanced, and the same evening routed a corps of horse 8000 strong. “Early the next morning they arrived near a bridge over the Birs; and met emissaries from Basle, admonishing them not to attempt the passage of the river, the main army of the Dauphin being posted on its opposite banks. They might now have retreated with honour; but, flushed with the successes of the preceding day, and not doubting that, as they were now within a mile of Basle, the burghers would make a seasonable diversion in their favour, they resolved to accomplish the purpose for which they had been sent, or to perish in the attempt. They came to the bridge; but found it so strongly defended, that the forcing it was deemed wholly impracticable. They now threw themselves into the torrent, crossed it with the utmost speed, rushed up the opposite bank in the face of a numerous artillery, and