CHARACTER AND MANNERS OF THE TYROLESE. 



139 



dispirited troops, and magnified to an incredible degree tlie num- 

 ber^ and formidable aspect of their opponents. The French re- 

 mained under arms during the night, in hourly expectation of an 

 attack ; and, at length, drew off their forces, leaving Inspruck a 

 second time to the brave men who had fought so nobly for its 

 relief. 



The whole valley of the Inn, as far as the fortress of Kuffstein, 

 was now recovered by the Tyrolese, and they were on the point of 

 bringing to a successful termination the siege of that fortress, 

 when the fatal news of the battle of Wagram, and of the conse- 

 quent armistice between the Austrians and French, was received. 

 Shortly after this mournful intelligence was made known, the 

 Tyrolese found themselves attacked by a great and overwhelming 

 force under the Duke of Dantzic, which successively drove them 

 from the lower and upper Inn Thai, and compelled them to take 

 refuge in the fastnesses between Sterzing and Inspruck, in the 

 neighbourhood of Mount Brenner. The conduct of the Tyrolese 

 leaders, on this occasion, afforded a striking example of that mix- 

 ture of religious enthusiasm with fixed and intrepid conduct, 

 which so strongly marks the character of that people. 'No sooner 

 was Hofer informed of the armistice between France and Austria, 

 and of the evacuation of Inspruck by the Austrian troops, than he 

 retired to a hermitage in one of the farthest recesses of the great 

 range of Alps which separates the valley of the Inn from that of 

 the Adige. Here he spent some days in solitude and prayer, re- 

 volving, it may be imagined, in his mind the different plans which 

 might be formed for the relief of the country ; and preparing 

 himself for the sufferings, and insults, and death, to which, in the 

 prosecution of his heroic purposes, he might be exposed. Nor 

 were these hours of solitary meditation without their influence 

 upon the character of his future life. It was from them that he 

 inhaled that holy spirit which rendered him superior to the temp- 

 tations, and fitted him for the sufferings of the world ; and it was 

 here that that invincible resolution was formed which never de- 

 serted him during the subsequent hours of national or individual 

 distress, and enabled him to die like a good Christian and a brave 

 man, when his earthly career was terminated within the walls of 

 Mantua. 



When Hofer and the other leaders of the insurrection issued 

 from their retreat, they found the peasantry struggling to retard 

 the enemy^ in their progress towards Sterzing. Already the 



