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CHAPTER IX.
NORTH TIROL – THE INNTHAL.
INNSBRUCK (continued)

Ora conosce come s’innamora

Lo Ciel del giusto rege, et al sembiante

Del suo fulgore il fa vedere ancora.

Dante Paradiso, xx. 63.¹⁵²

Another local tradition of Ambras attaches to a spot where Wallenstein, while a page in the household of Ferdinand and Philippine, fell unharmed from the window of the corridor leading to the dining-hall, making in the terrible moment a secret vow to the Blessed Virgin of his conversion if he escaped with life, which hastened the work begun doubtless by Philippine’s devout example and teaching. There is another, again, more marvellous still, and dated from an earlier period, and shortly before the purchase of the castle by the reigning family. It is said that Theophrastus Paracelsus, of whom many weird stories are told, was at one time sojourning at Innsbruck – where, another tradition has it, he died – and in the course of his wanderings in search of plants of strange healing powers, came to this outlying and then neglected castle. A peasant woman seeing him pass her cottage weary and footsore, asked him to come in and rest and taste her freshly-baked cakes, of which the homely odour scented the air. The man of strange science thanked her for her hospitality, and in return touched the tongs upon the hearth with his wonder-working book, and behold the iron was turned into pure gold. The origin of such a legend as this is easy to trace; the book of the touch of which such virtue is fabled, plainly represents the learning of the studious savant, which brought him, as well as fame, pecuniary advantage, enabling him to astonish the peasants with payment in the precious metal not often seen by them. But there are many others told of him, the details of which are more complicated, and wander much further from the outline of fact. The way in which he became possessed of his wonder-working power is thus accounted for.¹⁵³ One Sunday morning, when he was after his custom wandering in search of plants in a forest on the heights not far from Innsbruck, he heard a voice calling him out of a tree. ‘Who are you?’ cried Paracelsus. ‘I am he whom men call the Evil One,’ answered the voice; ‘but how wrong they are you shall judge; if you but release me out of this tree you shall see I am not evil at all.’ ‘How am I to set about it?’ asked the clever Doctor. ‘Only look straight up the stem of the pine opposite you, and you will see a bung with three crosses on it; all you have to do is to pull it out, and I am free; if you do this I will show you how good I am by giving you the two things you most desire, an elixir which shall turn all to gold, and another which shall heal every malady.’ Paracelsus, lured by the tempting promise, pulled out the bung, and straightway an ugly black spider crawled out of the hole, and quickly transformed itself into an old man wrapped in a scarlet mantle. The demon kept his word, and gave the Doctor the promised phials, but immediately began threatening the frightful vengeance he would wreak on the exorcist who had confined him in the tree. Paracelsus now blamed himself for his too ready confidence in the character the demon had given himself for goodness, and bethought him of a means of playing on the imp’s vanity. ‘What a knowing man that same exorcist must be,’ said Paracelsus, ‘to turn a tall powerful fellow like you into a spider, and then drive you into a tree.’ ‘Not a bit of it,’ replied the imp, piqued, ‘he couldn’t have done anything of the sort, it was all my own doing.’ ‘Your own doing!’ exclaimed Paracelsus, with a mocking laugh. ‘Is that likely? I have heard of people being transformed by some one of greater power than themselves, never by their own.’ ‘You shall see, though,’ said the provoked imp; and with that he quickly resumed the form of a spider, and crawled back into the hole.¹⁵⁴ Paracelsus, it may well be imagined, lost no time in replacing the bung, on which he cut three fresh crosses to renew the spell; and never can he again be released, for it was agreed never to cut down this forest on account of the protection it afforded to the country against the avalanches.

But, it may be asked, the wonder-working phials once vouchsafed to men, would surely be taken good care of. There is a legend to provide for that too.¹⁵⁵ When the other doctors of Innsbruck found that Paracelsus so far exceeded them in skill, they determined to poison him. Paracelsus had knowledge of their plot by his arts, he knew too that there was only one remedy against the poison they had adopted, and he shut himself up, telling his servant not to disturb him for five days. At the end of the fourth day, however, the curious servant came into his room and broke the spell. Paracelsus had employed a wonder-working spider to draw out the poison, which it would have done in the course of five days. Disturbed on the fourth, Paracelsus knew he must die. Determined that the jealous members of his profession should not profit by their crime, he sent his servant with the two phials and bid him stand in the middle of the Inn-bridge and throw them into the river. Where they fell into the river the water was streaked with molten gold.

It remains to call attention to the splendid and truly Tirolean panoramic view from the pretty terrace of Ambras, with its luxuriant trellis of passion-flower and ‘virgin vine.’ Overhanging the village of Ambras is the so-called Tummelplatz, where in the lifetime of Ferdinand and Philippine, many a gay tournament was held, but since used as a burying-place; first for the military hospital, to which the castle was at one time devoted – and some seven or eight thousand patriots were interred here between 1796 and 1810 – and afterwards for those who fell successfully resisting the Italian invasion of 1859.

Whatever was the manner of Philippine’s death, it was bitterly lamented by Ferdinand, who found the usual refuge of human grief in raising a splendid monument to her memory, in the so-called Silberne Kapelle in the Hofkirche. The chapel had been built by him to satisfy her devotion to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; and in her lifetime was so called from the solid silver image of the Blessed Virgin, and the bas-reliefs of the mysteries of the rosary in the same metal over the altar, itself a valuable ebony carving. She had loved to pray there, and it accordingly formed a fitting resting-place for her mortal remains. Her effigy in marble over her altar-shaped tomb is a figure of exceeding beauty, and is ascribed to Alexander Collin; it stands under a marble canopy. The upright slab is of white marble, carved in three compartments; the centre one bearing a modest inscription, and the other two, subjects recording her charity to the living and the dead; the outline of the town of Innsbruck, as it appeared in her day, forms the background. By his desire Ferdinand was buried near her; his monument is similarly sunk in the thickness of the wall, which is adorned with shields carved in relief, bearing the arms of his house painted with their respective tinctures; and on the tomb are marble reliefs, setting forth (after the manner of those on Maximilian’s cenotaph) the public acts of his life. This chapel came to be used afterwards for Italian sermons by the consorts of subsequent rulers of Tirol, many of whom were Italians.

In 1572 Innsbruck was visited by a severe shock of earthquake, which overthrew many buildings, and so filled the people with alarm, that temporary wooden huts were built in the open field where they took refuge. Ferdinand and Philippine had recourse to the same means of safety; and while living thus, their only daughter, Anna Eleonora, was born. In thanksgiving for this favour, and for the cessation of the panic, the royal pair vowed a pilgrimage to Seefeld,¹⁵⁶ which they accomplished on foot, accompanied by their sons; above two thousand Innsbruckers following them. The general sentiment of gratitude was further testified by the enactment on the part of Ferdinand, and the glad acceptance on the part of the people, of various rules of devotion, which have gone to form the subsequent habits of the people. Three years of dearth succeeded the earthquake, and were accepted by the pious ruler and people as a heavenly warning to lead them to increased faith and devotion. Many Lutheran books which had escaped earlier measures against them were spontaneously brought forward and burnt; special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was promoted, Ferdinand himself setting the example; for whenever he met the Viaticum on the way to the sick, whether he was in a carriage or on horseback, he never failed to alight and kneel upon the ground, whatever might be its condition. This was indeed a special tradition of his house; it is told of Rudolf of Hapsburg, that one day as he was out hunting, a furious storm came on, soon swelling the mountain torrents and sweeping away paths and bridges. On the brink of a raging stream, which there was no means of crossing, stood a priest, weather-bound on his way to carry the last sacrament to a dying parishioner. Rudolf recognised the sound of the bell, and directed his steps by its leading to pay his homage to the ‘hochwürdigste Gut.’ He no sooner learned the priest’s difficulty than he dismounted, and offered him his own horse. When the priest brought the animal back next day, the pious prince told him he could not think of himself again crossing a horse which had been honoured by having borne his Lord and Redeemer, and begged him to keep it for the future service of religion.

While Philippine’s relations never sought to overstep the limits which imperial etiquette had set them, Ferdinand seems to have treated them with kind cordiality. An instance of this was the magnificence with which he celebrated the marriage of her nephew, Johann von Kolourat, with her maid-of-honour, Katarina von Boimont, in 1580: the ‘Neustadt’ or principal street afforded space for tournaments and races which lasted many days, and attracted the remaining votaries of chivalry from all parts of Europe. The festivities were closed by a splendid pageant, in which Ferdinand took part as ‘Olympian Jove.’

In 1582 Ferdinand married Anna Katharina Gonzaga, daughter of the Duke of Mantua, who was no less pious than Philippine. The marriage was celebrated at Innsbruck with great pomp. She was the first to introduce the Capuchin Order into Germany. Some discussion in the general chapter of the Order preceded the decision which allowed the monks to accept the consequences of being exposed to a colder climate than that to which they had been used. The first stone of their monastery was laid by Ferdinand and Anna Katharina in August 1593, at the intersection of the Universitäts-gasse and the Sill-gasse. Ferdinand died the following year, regretted by all the people, but by none more than by Anna Katharina, who passed the remainder of her days in a convent she had founded at Innsbruck. She died in 1621, and desired the following inscription to be put on her tomb: – ‘Miserere mei Domine dum veneris in novissimo die.’

The warning of the disastrous years 1572–4 was further turned to practical account by Ferdinand in his desire to relieve the distress of the peasants. In the first months of threatening famine he bought with his own means large stores of grain in Hungary and Italy, and opened depôts in various parts of Tirol, where it was sold at a reasonable price. To provide a means of earning money for those who were shut out of their ordinary labour, he laid out or improved some of the most important high roads; he likewise exerted himself in every way to promote the commerce of the country. His reign conferred many other benefits on the people. Many laws were amended and brought in conformity with the altered circumstances of the age; the principle of self-taxation was established, and other measures enacted which it does not belong to my present province to particularise. He introduced also the use of the Gregorian Calendar, and gave great encouragement to the cultivation of letters. It was by his care that the most authentic MSS. of the Nibelungen poems and other examples of early literature were preserved to us.

As Ferdinand had no children by Anna Katharina, and those of Philippine were not allowed to succeed,¹⁵⁷ the rule over Tirol went back at his death to the Emperor Rudolf II., Maximilian’s eldest son. In 1602, however, he gave over the government to his brother Maximilian, who is distinguished by the name of the Deutschmeister. Tirol was again fortunate in her ruler; Maximilian was as pious and prudent a prince as his predecessors. He promoted the educational establishments of the town, and was a zealous opponent of religious differences; he brought in the Order of Servites to oppose the remaining germs of Lutheran teaching; the church and monastery at the end of the Neustadt being built for them by Katharina Maria. There are some pictures in the church by Theophilus Polak, Martin Knoller, Grasmair, and other native artists; and the frescoes on the roof by Schöpf are worth attention. A fanatic named Paul Lederer, one of the very few Tirol has produced, rose in this reign, and carried away about thirty persons to join a kind of sect which he attempted to form; in accordance with the laws of the age, he was tried and executed, after which his followers were no more heard of.

Maximilian was much attached to the Capuchins, and built himself a little hermitage within their precincts, which is still shown, where he spent all the time he could spare in prayer and meditation; following the rule of the monks, rising with them to their night Offices, and employing himself at manual labour in the field and in the workshop like one of them. His cell is paneled with plain wood, the bed and chair are of the most ordinary make, as are the ink-stand and other necessary articles, mostly his own handiwork; it has a window high up in the chancel, whence he could assist at the Offices in the church. The Empress Maria Theresa visited it in 1765, and seating herself in the stiff wooden chair, exclaimed, ‘What men our forefathers were!’ Another illustrious pilgrim, whose visit is treasured in the memories of the house, was St. Lorenzo of Brindisi, when on his way to found a house of the Order in Austria. The monks begged of him his Hebrew Bible, his walking-stick, and breviary, which are still treasured as relics. All the churches of Innsbruck and many throughout Tirol felt the benefit of Maximilian’s devotion to the Church. His spirit was emulated by the townspeople, and when the fatal epidemic of 1611 ceased its ravages, the burghers of Innsbruck built the Dreiheiligkeitskirche¹⁵⁸ for the Jesuits, as a thank-offering that the plague was stayed.

The temporal affairs of Tirol received no less attention from Archduke Maximilian than the spiritual. With the foresight of a true statesman, he discovered the coming troubles of the Thirty Years’ War, and resolved that the defences of his country should be in a state to keep the danger at a distance from her borders. The fortified towers, especially those commanding the passes into the country, were all overlooked, and plans of them carefully prepared, all the fortifications being put in repair. The Landwehr, the living bulwarks, the ready defenders of their beloved mountain Vaterland, attracted his still more special attention, and he furnished them with a regulation suited to the needs of the times. He settled also several outstanding disputes with the Venetians, with Count Arco, and with neighbours over the north and west frontiers; and an internal boundary quarrel between the Bishops of Brixen and Trent. The death of Rudolf II., in 1612, had invested him with supreme authority over the country, and simplified his action in all these matters for the benefit of the commonwealth.

Another outburst of pestilence occurred in 1611; the old Siechen-haus was not big enough for all the sick, and had no church attached to it. Two Jesuits – the professor of theology at their university, and Kaspar von Köstlan, a native of Brixen – assisted by a lay-brother, devoted themselves to the service of the sick; their example so edified the Innsbruckers, that in their admiration they readily provided the means, at their exhortation, to build a church. Hanns Zimmermann, Dean of the Burgomasters, bound himself by a vow to see to the erection of the building, and from that time it was observed the fury of the pestilence began to diminish. Maximilian bought the neighbouring house and appointed it for the residence of the chaplain of the Siechen-haus and the doctors. He gave also the altarpiece by Stötzl, representing the three Pestschutzheiligen,¹⁵⁹ and another quaint and curious picture of the plague-genius.

Maximilian died in 1618, and a religious vow having kept him unmarried, the government was transferred to Leopold V., Archduke of Styria, again a most exemplary man. His father was Charles II., son of the Emperor Ferdinand I.; he had originally been devoted to the ecclesiastical state, and nominated Bishop of Strasburg and Passau; but out of regard for the exigencies of the country a dispensation, of which I think history affords only two or three other examples, was granted him from Rome. He married the celebrated Claudia de’ Medici, Duchess of Urbino. Though also Governor of the Low Countries, he by no means neglected the affairs of Tirol. Some fresh attempts of Lutherans to interfere with its religious unity, as well as to foment political dissensions, were put down with a resolute hand. Friedrich von Tiefenbach, sometime notorious as a politico-religious leader in Moravia, was discovered in a hiding-place he had selected, in the wild caves at Pfäffers¹⁶⁰ below Chur, and tried and beheaded at Innsbruck in 1621. The selection of Innsbruck for the marriage of the Emperor Ferdinand II. with his second wife Eleonora, daughter of the Duke of Mantua, in 1622, revived the splendours of Maximilian’s reign, for the Emperor stayed there some weeks with all his court; the Landwehr turned out three thousand strong to form his guard of honour. It was the depth of winter, but the bride braved the snow; the Count of Harrach was sent out to meet her on the Brenner Pass with six gilt sledges, and a vast concourse of people. It is recorded that the Emperor wore on the occasion an entirely white suit embroidered with gold and pearls, on his shoulders a short sky-blue cloak lined with cloth of gold, and a diamond chain round his neck. Eleonora, more in accordance with the season, wore a tight-fitting dress of carnation satin embroidered in gold, over it a sable jacket, and a hat with a plume of eagles’ feathers. The banquet was entirely served by young Tirolean nobles. The Emperor’s present to his bride was a pearl parure, costing thirty thousand ducats; and that of the town of Innsbruck a purse of eighteen thousand ducats. Leopold was confirmed by his imperial brother in the government on this occasion. His own marriage was celebrated with scarcely less state than the Emperor’s in April 1626, an array of handsome tents being pitched in the meadows of Wilten, where the Landesschützen performed many marksmen’s feats for the diversion of the company assembled for the ceremonial. This included the Archbishop of Salzburg, who officiated in the Church function, one hundred and fifty counts and barons, and three hundred of noble blood. The visit of the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1628, and of Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, in 1629, were other notable occasions of rejoicing for Innsbruck.

Leopold benefited and adorned the town by the enclosure and planting of the Hofgarten, and the bronze equestrian statue of himself, still one of its chief ornaments; but his memory has been more deeply endeared to the people by the present of Kranach’s Madonna, which they have copied in almost every church, household, and highway of the country. It is a little picture on panel, very like many of its date, in which the tenderness of devotion beams through and redeems all the stiffness of mannerism; but which we are apt to pass, I had almost said by the dozen, in the various galleries of Europe, with no more than a casual glance. With the Tirolese it was otherwise. Their faith-inspired eyes saw in it a whole revelation of Divine mercy and love; they gazed on the outpouring of maternal fondness and filial confidence in the unutterable communion of the Mother and the Son there portrayed; and deeming that where so much love reigned no petition could be rejected, they believed that answers to the frequent prayers of faith sent up before it were reaped an hundredfold,¹⁶¹ and the fame of the benefits so derived was symbolized in the title universally given to the picture, of Mariähülfsbild.¹⁶² Leopold being in the early part of his reign on a visit to the Elector of Saxony, on occasion of one of his journeys between Tirol and the Low Countries, and being lost in admiration of his collection of pictures at Dresden, received from him the offer of any painting he liked to select. There were many choice specimens, but the devotional conception of this picture carried him away from all the rest, and it became the object of his selection. He never parted from it afterwards, and it accompanied him in all his journeyings. When in Innsbruck, it formed the altar-piece of the Hofkapelle, whither the people crowded to kindle their devotion at its focus. After the withdrawal of the allied French, Swedish, and Hessian troops in 1647, the Innsbruckers, in thanksgiving for the success of their prayers before it, built the elegant little circular temple¹⁶³ on the left bank of the Inn, still called the Mariähülfskirche, thinking to enshrine it there; but Ferdinand Karl, who had then succeeded to his father Leopold, could not bear to part with it, and gave them a copy instead, by Paul Schor, inserted in a larger picture representing it borne by angels, and the notabilities of Innsbruck kneeling beneath it, the Mariähülfskirche being introduced into the background landscape. However, the number of people who pressed to approach it was so great that he was in a manner constrained to bestow it on the Pfarrkirche only two or three years later, where it now remains; it was translated thither during Queen Christina’s visit, as I have mentioned above. It was borne on a car by six white horses, the crowded streets being strewn with flowers. It is a small picture, and has been let into a large canvas painted in Schöpf’s best manner, with angels which appear to support it, and beneath St. James, patron of the church, and St. Alexius. A centenary festival was observed in memory of the translation by Maria Theresa in 1750, when all the precious ex votos, the thank-offerings for many granted prayers, were exposed to view under the light streaming from a hundred silver candelabra, the air around being perfumed by the flowers of a hundred silver vases. The procession was a splendid pageant, in which no expense seems to have been spared, the great Empress herself, accompanied by her son, afterwards Joseph II., heading it. This was repeated – in a manner corresponding with the diminished magnificence of the age – in 1850, the Emperor Ferdinand I., the Empress Anna, and other members of the Imperial family, taking their part in it.¹⁶⁴

The only remaining act of Leopold’s reign which calls for mention in connexion with Innsbruck, was the erection of the monument to Maximilian the Deutschmeister, in the Pfarrkirche, almost the only one that was spared when the church was rebuilt after the earthquakes of 1667 and 1689, the others having been ruthlessly used – the headstones in building up the walls, the bronze ones in the bell-castings.

Leopold’s son, Ferdinand Karl, being under age at the time of his death, in 1632, he was succeeded by his widow, Claudia de’ Medici, as regent. The troubles of the Thirty Years’ War, in which Leopold like other German princes had had his chequered share, were yet raging. Claudia was equal to the exigencies of her time and country. She continued the measures of Maximilian the Deutschmeister for perfecting the defences of the country, and particularly all its inlets; and she encouraged the patriotic instincts of the people by constantly presiding at their shooting-practice. The Swedish forces, after taking Constance, advanced as far as the Valtelin, and Tirol was threatened with invasion on both sides at once. By her skilful measures, at every rumour of an inroad, the mountains bristled with the unerring marksmen of Tirol, securely stationed at their posts inaccessible to lowlanders. Nothing was spared to keep up the vigilance and spirit of the true-hearted peasants. By this constant watchfulness she saved the country from the horrors of war, in which almost the whole of the German Empire was at that time involved. During all this time she was also developing the internal resources, and consolidating the administration of the country. Two misfortunes, however, visited Innsbruck during her reign: a terrible pestilence, and a destructive fire in which the Burg suffered severely, the beautiful chapel of Ferdinand II. being consumed, and the body of Leopold, her husband, which was lying there at the time, rescued with difficulty. After this, Claudia spent some little time at Botzen, and also visited Florence. It may be questioned whether the introduction of the numerous Italians about her court was altogether for the benefit of Tirol. They brought with them certain ways and principles which were not altogether in accordance with the German character; and we have seen the effect of the jealousies of race in the tragic fate of her chancellor Biener.¹⁶⁵

Ferdinand Karl having attained his majority in 1646, Claudia withdrew from public affairs, and died only two years later. In his reign the introduction of the Italian element at court was apparent in the greater luxury of its arrangements, and in the greater cultivation of histrionic and musical diversions. The establishment of the theatre in Innsbruck is due to him. The marriage of his two sisters, Maria Leopoldina and Isabella Clara, and the frequent interchange of visits between him and the princes of Italy, further enlivened Innsbruck. The visit of Queen Christina,¹⁶⁶ of which I have already said enough for my limits, also took place in his reign (1655). Nor did Ferdinand Karl give himself up to amusement to the neglect of business, or of more manly pleasures. He maintained all his mother’s measures for the encouragement of the Scheibenschiessen, and had the satisfaction of seeing the departure of the enemy’s army from his borders, which was celebrated by the building of Mariähülfskirche.¹⁶⁷ To his love of the national sport of chamois-hunting his death has to be ascribed; for the neglect of an attack of illness while out on a mountain expedition near Kaltern after the wild game, gave it a hold on his constitution, which placed him beyond recovery. His death occurred in 1660, at the early age of thirty-four; he left no heir.

He was succeeded by his only brother, Sigmund Franz, Bishop of Gurk, Augsburg, and Trent, who seems to have inherited all his mother’s finer qualities without sharing her Italianizing tendencies. With a perhaps too sudden sternness, he purged the court and government of all foreign admixture, and reduced the sumptuous suite of his brother to dimensions dictated by usefulness alone. However popular this may have made him with the German population, the ousted Italians were furious; and his sudden death – which occurred while, after the pattern of his father, applying for a dispensation to marry, in 1665 – was by the Germans ascribed to secret poisoning; his Tuscan physician Agricola having, it is alleged, been bribed to perpetrate the misdeed.

Tirol now once more reverted to the Empire. Though Leopold I. came to Innsbruck to receive the homage of the people on his accession, and a gay ceremonial ensued, yet it lost much of its importance by having no longer a resident court. While there, however, Leopold had seen the beautiful daughter of Ferdinand Karl’s widow, Claudia Felicità, who made such an impression upon him, that he married her on the death of his first wife. The ceremony was performed in Innsbruck by proxy only; but the dowager-archduchess provided great fêtes, in which the city readily concurred, and gave the bride thirty thousand gulden for her wedding present. Claudia Felicità, in her state at Vienna, did not forget the good town of Innsbruck; and by her interest with her husband, Tirol received a Statthalter in the person of Charles Duke of Lotharingia, husband of his sister Eleonora Maria, widow of the King of Poland. Charles took up his residence at Innsbruck; and though he was often absent with the army, the presence of his family revived the gaiety of the town; still it was not like the old days of the court. Charles, however, who had been originally educated for the ecclesiastical state, was a sovereign of unexceptionable principles and sound judgment; and he did many things for the benefit of Tirol, particularly in developing its educational establishments. He raised the Jesuit gymnasium of Innsbruck to the character of a university; and the privileges with which he endowed it, added to the salubrity of the situation, attracted alumni from far and near, who amounted to near a thousand in number.

Nothing of note occurred in Tirol till 1703 – the Duke of Lotharingia had died in 1696 – which is a memorable year. The war of the Spanish Succession, at that time, found Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria, and some of the Italian princes, allied with France against Austria – thus there were antagonists of Austria on both sides of Tirol; nevertheless, no attack on it seems to have been apprehended; and thus, when a plan was concerted for entering Austria by Carinthia (the actual boundaries against Bavaria being too well defended to invite an entrance that way), and it was arranged that the Bavarian and Italian allies should assist the French in overrunning Tirol, everyone was taken by surprise. Maximilian easily overcame the small frontier garrison. At Kufstein he met a momentary check, but an accident put the fortress in his power. Possessed of this base of operations, he was not long in reducing the forts of Rottenburg Scharnitz, and Ehrenberg, and possessing himself of Hall and Innsbruck. He now reckoned the country his, and that it only remained to send news of his success to Vendôme, who had taken Wälsch-Tirol similarly by surprise and advanced as far as Trent, in order to carry out their concerted inroad through the Pusterthal. So sure of his victory was he, that he ordered the Te Deum to be sung in all the churches of Innsbruck.