196

BATTLE OF CAPPEL-BADEN.

The battle of Cappel was a battle for liberty of conscience, against those who had invaded it. Zurich lost the battle and Zwingle was slain, but the cause, in the end, triumphed. He accompanied the troops to battle, in obedience to the custom of his country, as he had before accompanied the troops of Glaris to the fields of Italy. He fell at Cappel, a martyr in a holy cause. The spirit of his enemies was clearly shown in the brutal ferocity which committed his mangled corpse to the flames, and then scattered his ashes to the winds.

Zwingle, from the beginning to the end of his career, was a consistent and heroic advocate and defender of the truth of God, and the rights of man.

From this episode, into which I have naturally been led by the associations of the place, as well as by feelings which I could not well suppress, I return to the journal of a traveller.

From Zurich we went by railroad to Baden. Our friends accompanied us thus far, and then took leave of us. Their route lay in the direction of Constance. After visiting Munich, Dresden, Berlin, and Vienna, they were to spend the winter in Italy. How happy we would have been to have accompanied them. But we were bound for France, and thence home again. Italy is to us still an object of expecta

tion.

The route from Zurich to Basil is one of great natural beauty, and of historical interest. At Baden the Limmat has forced its way through the mountain to join the Rhine. On one side of this gorge stands the ruins of a castle, once the stronghold of the Princes of Austria. The Swiss Ba

BRUGG- CASILE OF HABSBURG.

197

den, like Baden-Baden, and Baden in Austria, is resorted to for its baths.

Next after Baden is the ancient town of Brugg. Below the town, the Limmat, the Reuss, and the Aar form a junction, and then they all flow on as the Aar, and join the Rhine. Where the Reuss unites with the Aar stood the Roman Vidonissa. Near Brugg is the abbey of Köningsfelden, founded in 1310, on the spot where the emperor Albert was assassinated. On the height of Wüpelsberg stand the ruins of the castle of Habsburg, built in the eleventh century by Count Radbod, an ancestor of the family, whence came Rudolph the first emperor of that house. A small estate, had these Counts of Habsburg, who took possession of the throne of Charlemagne.

At the foot of the Wüpelsberg are the baths of Schintznach, the most celebrated of the watering-places in Switzerland. The number of these places in Germany and Switzerland is astonishing. They all have their uses and attractions, and they all are resorted to.

At Brugg we crossed the Aar by a long wooden bridge, and wound our way up the long hill of Bötzberg. It was here that we began to meet crowds of pilgrims, of all ages and of both sexes, on their way to the shrine of our Lady of Einsiedeln. After this we passed them continually. Most of them were from the French side of the Rhine. They carried packs containing provisions and other necessaries. They were all of the lower order. We could hear them at a considerable distance repeating their Paternosters, and Ave Marias. It was like the hum of bees swarming, and as

198

PILGRIMS—ADIEU 10 THE ALPS.

rapid as the repetition of the alphabet, or multiplication table by children. On they trudged with fixed countenances, apparently weary and heavy laden, some with packs, some with age, and perhaps, too, with a sense of their sins,on they trudged day after day to the sacred seat of the Holy Mother to find rest unto their souls. O that the voice of a Zwingle could again penetrate them as of yore, "Christ alone saves us, and Christ saves every where." The average number of pilgrims annually at Einsiedeln is 150,000. In 1834, 36,000 resorted there during one fortnight.

From the summit of the Bötzberg we saw for the last time the glorious Alps. During our ascent they had come into view, and for nearly an hour they lay before us. There again were the Eigher, the Mönch, the Wetterhorn, the Schreckhorn, the Jungfrau, the Blumlis Alp. As we descended the other side of the hill, gradually we lost sight of them :-at last only their snowy peaks shot above the brow of the hill; we descend a little lower, they are gone. For some time I felt sad, and I said to myself, When shall I see them again!

We left the Bötzberg; we were again on the banks of the Rhine. The evening drew on. The cornfields, meadows, and vineyards of the canton of Basle were around us; and as the sun went down, we were under the protection of the Three Kings of Cologne, or rather of mine host of the Three Kings in the goodly town of Basle.

Country and Home.

E attachment of the Swiss to their country and

THE

homes is well known to all. Every one is familiar with the story, that Swiss soldiers in foreign armies are prone to desert if by chance they hear the airs of the Ranz des Vaches. And this Switzerland does look like a country which one would love to call his country; and these Swiss towns, and villages, and glorious valleys, have a homelike aspect. Attachment to country and home is a strong and dear feeling of the human heart. Home, indeed, is home every where, for it is made up of the circle of parents and children; and it is possible to remove it from country to country and yet to preserve it. But, nevertheless, the home feeling is strengthened by the attachments of friends and neighbors, and by attachment to the country in which we make our home. It is strengthened also by local associations,

200 THE SWISS AND THEIR HOMES.

and by natural objects of beauty and grandeur. The spot where our fathers have lived before us, the old house in which they were born and in which they died, the lands on which they toiled-these gather a sacredness around them. And when mountain and valley, and lake and river, and mountain-streams, make up a glorious scenery, the imagination and the heart become wedded to the soil by a charm whose power is then only fully realized when the connecting tie is broken. If, in addition to all this, one's country has an old and heroic history, is filled with native literature and native arts, and with the memory of great and good men, is fostered by benignant political institutions, and is under holy religious influences, so that patriotism and piety join hand to hand,—then are the ties of country and home complete.

Such a country and such a home the Swiss have had. And yet, with the other nations of Europe, they are beginning to emigrate to America in large numbers. Even from the Oberland they are flocking to our shores. They seek to escape from an overcrowded population; they desire a more abundant subsistence more easily obtained; they want more space and freedom of action; they distrust their own security amid the vortices of European revolution; they wish to escape from the liabilities to war and invasion, and to sit down undisturbed amid the arts of peace. The time was when their mountain fastnesses were the only home of liberty; but now they are filled with dreams of the glorious West, where liberty is still more secure, and where all that man wants is more abundant; and thus restlessness and hope conspire to lead them away. But I cannot believe they can leave their native