Nearly all through the fourteenth century this claim was being disputed, sometimes diplomatically, and sometimes by active war. Twice the Habsburgs raised an army to go against these audacious rebels, as they deemed them. The story of William Tell shooting the apple on his son's head belongs to this period. We need not accept it as actual historical fact, but rather as a legend expressive of the patriotism of the Swiss cantons. The confederates were very few in numbers, but they had the courage common among mountaineers, and in their mountainous country they could defend themselves against a far larger force {216} of invaders. The numbers of the opposing armies that met in these conflicts were curiously unequal. In one great battle, that of Morgarten, early in the century, the attacking force is estimated at anything between 15,000 and 20,000, and the defending force at between 1,300 and 1,500. Yet the larger force, charging up the mountains and being beset with huge stones hurled at them by the defenders on the ridges, were utterly defeated. The same thing happened again towards the end of the century at the battle of Sempach. After that the Habsburgs made little further attempt to enforce their claims, but it was not till towards the end of the following century that the claim was formally renounced in a treaty called the "Ever-lasting Compact." The Swiss seem to have been fond of that dangerous word, as applied to leagues and compacts, "ever-lasting." In the course of the fifteenth century other cantons were taken into the confederacy. In the contest between Louis XI. of France and his great vassal the Duke of Burgundy, the Swiss were brought into alliance with the French, the winning side, and they were consistently successful in a series of battles with the Burgundians. Maximilian, the Habsburg, was on the other, the Burgundian, side, for he had married the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy. Their alliance with the French added to the strength of the Swiss, and by the end of that century they had succeeded in throwing off any authority that the Emperor might still claim to wield over them, just as they had thrown off the claim of the Habsburgs at the end of the century before.