After the youth had departed the lady and her attendants were wont to take their spinning to the spot at which the lovers had parted, and there it was that she suddenly realized that her young Crusader had been killed, and she herself expired with the shock. It will be seen that those who visit the cross on the Wienerberg can take a legend with a tragic or a happy ending in accordance with their mood. Returning to the Danube we find that the Danube canal rejoins the river some miles below the city. Some of the steamers for Budapest leave the quay by the palatial offices of the Danube Steamship Company on the banks of the canal instead of the landing place on the main stream, and pass along part of the tree-grown Prater. Canal and river join again opposite the large island of Lobau on the left--one of the largest of the many islands formed by the branching river. Beyond this island lie some way inland little villages that have given their names to battles on which for a time the fate of Napoleon--and therefore, in a sense of Europe--depended. These villages are Aspern and Wagram, one the name of the place where Napoleon’s credit as a victorious general received a rude shock, and the other that of a place where six weeks later he retrieved his fortunes in a splendid fashion. It was in 1809 that the Emperor, having seized upon Vienna, found a great Austrian army upon the Marchfeld on the left bank of the Danube and knew that no peace was possible until it had been attacked and beaten. He selected the island of Lobau as a starting point for his operations where the narrow northern branch of the river could be rapidly bridged. On 20 May, forty thousand French troops were allowed to make an unopposed crossing to the left bank. They occupied the villages of Aspern and Essling, and on the following day were attacked by the Austrians, the army of whom under the Archduke Charles numbered eighty thousand. For two days the battle raged, a further forty thousand Frenchmen crossing the river and making the forces equal. During the struggle the village of Aspern was five times lost and won, but at length Napoleon was forced to order a retreat on to the island of Lobau. The bridges were carried away, and the great army was encamped for two days without food and without ammunition, cut off from Vienna.