138 CHARACTER AND MANNERS OF THE TYROLESK. 



mult, and animation of the battle. Tlie wounded were not left, as 

 in ordinary campaigns, to the cold and mercenary attendants of a 

 field-hospital. They were conveyed instantly to their relations 

 and friends ; and died in the midst of all who were dear to them, 

 and in the sight " of their own hills which they had loved so well." 

 Those who fell in the field were not cast, as in ordinary battles, 

 into one "undistinguished grave, but were conveyed to their native 

 homes, and their remains preserved with religious care, and in- 

 terred with a mingled feeling of exultation and grief, in the sepul- 

 chres of their fathers. The Tyrolese felt all that sublime devo- 

 tion to their country's welfare, which made the Spartan mothers 

 rejoice over their sons who had fallen in battle ; but the stern 

 feelings of ancient virtue were tempered with the gentler spirit of 

 Christian devotion : and the graves of those who fell in the war 

 are still strewed with flowers, to mark the undecaying affection 

 with w^hich their memory is cherished by the little circle to whom 

 their victory was known. 



The victory, though long doubtful, at length declared for the 

 righteous side. Before sunset, the French and Bavarian ranks 

 were entirely broken, and the shattered remnants of their forces 

 fled in the utmost confusion to the valley of the Inn. Thither 

 the Tyrolese pursued them ; and the news of this great victory 

 soon brought thousands of new levies to their standards. The 

 patriotic force rolled onwards, increasing as it advanced, till they 

 occupied all the heights that surrounded the town of Inspruck. 

 Thirty thousand men, the flower of the whole population of the 

 Tyrol, and animated to enthusiasm by their recent successes, 

 hemmed in the united forces of the French and Bavarians, who 

 still amounted U> twenty-five thousand men. These troops, how- 

 ever, were completely dispirited by the defeat which they had ex- 

 perienced; and beheld, with anxious dread, on the evening of 

 June 1st, the increasing bodies of the peasantry, who showed 

 themselves on all the rising grounds in the neighbourhood of the 

 town. The spectacle, indeed, was such as might have struck ter- 

 ror into troops less acquainted than they were with the valour 

 and animosity of their enemies. On all sides, as far as the eye 

 could reach, they discerned large numbers of men, whose activity 

 and increasing columns indicated some great and immediate at- 

 tack ; and when night fell, a thousand fires on the surrounding 

 mountains cast a red and fearful light on their own shattered and 



