blood, and boasted to his comrades, "To-day we seem to be bathing in
roses." "There, eat thy roses!" yelled a dying Uri soldier, flinging at
his head a large stone which struck him dead from his horse. Louis, who
had lost some four thousand men in the fight, was greatly impressed by
such show of bravery on the part of the Swiss, and concluded an
honourable peace with them at Ensisheim, on the 28th of October, 1444.
St. Jacques is a second Swiss Thermopylæ, and sheds immortal honour on
the combatants. Though beaten the Confederates were not dishonoured.
Like the brave Spartans under Leonidas they preferred death to servitude
and dishonour. This battle was also the turning-point of the federal
war; it rendered the Confederates more pliant. And though desultory
feuds still showed themselves, peace was at last concluded, in 1450, by
which Zurich was forced to give up her Austrian alliance. The federal
league was knit more closely together than ever before; old injuries
were soon forgotten, and the Eidgenossen accepted an invitation to
Zurich to join in the carnival festivities got up to celebrate the
reconciliation, 1454. A deplorable incident took place during the
festivities, the seizure by the Eidgenossen, at the minster, of the
famous savant, Felix Malleolus, a canon of the Church. Born of an
ancient family at Zurich, he was educated first at the Carolinum in his
native city, and afterwards at the university of Bologna, which was the
glory of the Middle Ages. Bold, and of an unbending will, early
acquainted with the corruptions of the Church and clergy, he hurled
bitter invectives against the guilty, and raised for himself a host of
enemies amongst the priesthood. And during the early years of the war he
had likewise attacked the Eidgenossen as enemies of his native town, and
called them an illiterate, uncouth, and belligerent race. His own
chapter had objected to so stern a man as provost, and he had
consequently contented himself with the position of canon, a position
which left him ample time for study, and the composition of learned
pamphlets. When the Eidgenossen seized him he was bending over his
beloved books. He was hurried to Constance, and was there, by the
bishop, thrown into the same prison as that occupied by the martyr Huss.
The higher clergy as a rule connived at the deed, and, though promised
release, he was handed over a prisoner to the monks at Lucerne. Here the
lofty words of Cellano, _"Dies irae, dies illa,"_ so well known from
their use in Mozart's Requiem Mass, seem to have been a great
consolation to the unfortunate canon. It is not known exactly when he
died.
XVIII.
BURGUNDIAN WARS.
(1474-1477.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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