HOFER & THE TYROLESE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

The records of war are ordinarily and mercy beating in their hearts, the records of little else besides misery while their arms have been lifted up to and crime. Even when the amount strike, and their countenance has of abstract injustice is not equal on shown no trace of fear. both sides engaged, there is little to To the Catholic it is consolatory to honor or admire in the animating prin- reflect, that it has been under the inciples of the belligerents; while in the fluence of the faith, that the most actual conduct of their deadly rivalry striking exhibitions of this really there is rarely any thing to be discern- Christian warfare have been displayed ed but a contest of passion, blood- to his fellow-creatures. Insulted as thirstiness, and selfishness. For the we are by the vilest imputations of most part, nations quarrel like child- cruelty, licentiousness, and disregard ren, and fight like devils. of all ties of patriotism, it is a gloWhat are popularly termed "re- rious thing to turn silently and read ligious wars" are no exceptions to the the histories of wars in which, under rule. However holy the professed ob- the direct sanction of the Church, ject of one party involved, the character human nature has shown itself couraof such wars has been almost always, geous, enduring, patriotic, and mercito a considerable extent, unchristian ful, to an extent altogether unapproachand detestable. Purity of motive and ed by those who taunt us with every uprightness, and mercy in action, have degrading vice. While it is daily been usually confined to a small hand- dinned into our ears, till we are wellful of individuals. The dominant nigh stunned, that, under the dark spirit has been entirely that of this influence of Popery, the world must world even while its watchwords have necessarily go backwards, and all our powers be paralyzed, until, by the sheer repetition of extravagant charges, we

most distinctively the language

been most

of the Gospel and the Cross.

9

to Here and there, however, the eye of begin almost to suspect that we are the historian detects a brighter spot in rogues without knowing it, it is sooththese long dismal annals of darkness ing to let the imagination wander back and horror. It is possible to point to to countries where Catholicism has episodes in the wide history of blood- been embraced and really acted on, shedding when men have fought like unmolested either by Protestant preachChristians, and not like beasts or er or liberal statesman, where it has devils; wielding the sword not only in shown its vivifying power over the word, but in reality, "in the name of soul, unaided and unhindered either God," penetrated with a sense of the by royal patronage or aristocratical awful responsibility they had under- wealth. While the world is driving taken, and with emotions of love on at its own chosen rate of "progress,'

His

it is instructive to turn and watch the has ever been since Christianity existways of other and humbler races, ed. Manly, frank, and vigorous, the whose civilization has not consisted in Tyrolese unites in a remarkable derailways, crystal-palaces, screw-steam- gree a devotion to a royal house, with ers, and the penny-post, but in sim- a personal independence of mind and plicity, hardihood, comparative poverty, capacity for practical action. and unmitigated "Romanism." wealth is little, but his desires are few; For, after all, "progress is not he has the art of mingling pleasure necessarily progress to happiness and with labor; the vices of civilization greatness. There is a knowledge which are known to him more by report than is more stultifying than ignorance; by experience; he loves the liberties there is a power which is more de- of his country like a rational man who grading than weakness. It is possible knows that there can be no liberty withto be great, glorious, and heroic, with out law, and no law without obedience; very simple appliances, and the utmost and in the possession of rare and preamount of material civilization, com- sent advantages, he is content to live fort, and order, is perfectly compati- on without schemes of change, and to ble with a very low degree of love that which is, all the more dearly excellence in all that is most honorable because his country has flourished for in man. It is not crabs alone that can centuries under institutions and with "progress" backwards. habits almost identical with those which he sees around him still.

Perhaps no spot in Europe is more suggestive of the reminiscences of a If the stranger question him as to noble yet simple civilization than the the past history of his country, be mountainous district of the Tyrolese perceives, nevertheless, that in his Alps. Bordering upon Switzerland-open and peaceful mind there yet that country of pretence, hypocrisy, linger memories of a bloody struggle, and tyranny for generations has when all this fair state of tranquillity been found a race where faith and and labor was for a time crushed patriotism have dwelt in intimate beneath the heel of cruelty and a godalliance, and the achievements of labor- less lust of dominion. Even among his ing mountaineers have rivalled those favorite sculptured images, the works of the most celebrated soldiers of the of the hereditary handicraft of his world. The traveller, recking from the people, and for the most part religious hot and artificial life of England or in its aspect, singular figures appear, France, on reaching the Tyrol finds little known, or altogether unheard of, himself in a new world of freshness out of his own country. In innumerand genial simplicity. He is surround-able houses appears a warlike inned by a people among whom education keeper; and stranger still, in modern. is not only general but universal, for times, a Capuchin friar, sword in hand, none can marry unless they can read the remembrance of whose deeds is and write; but who, nevertheless, are cherished by every rank with a fervor all Catholics, and, as a race, as uni- of gratitude, in comparison of which the versally devout as perhaps any nation recollections of the heroes of other

countries are faint and dim.

If there as it was in name, was held in check

is such a thing as lasting national thank- by many local rights and privileges,

fulness, Hofer, the landlord of an inn at Passeyr, and Haspinger, the Capuchin, nick-named Redbeard, have unquestionably lived in the affections of their fellow-countrymen with a posthumous glory seldom equalled in countries of more artificial cultivation, where the hero of yesterday is usually forgotten in the hero of to-day.

and still more by the influence of a moral and physical nobleness, so that the position of a Tyrolese was practically as free and self-legislating as that of the electing and governing classes in representative England at this very hour.

In the earlier period of the "Reformation," when the dominion of Austria The history of that struggle which in Switzerland was tottering to its was long maintained by Hofer, with the foundations, the allegiance of the Tyrol, aid of the Capuchin and other subor- still steadfast in the ancient faith, was dinates, against the overwhelming conciliated by a renewed confirmation power of France and Bavaria, is indeed of its hereditary privileges; and thus, one of the most extraordinary records externally free, subject to its own of courageous and skilful resistance taxation alone, and with political power against irresistible force, which modern diffused alike through the peasantry annals have preserved. Like so many and the nobles, the Tyrol remained, up of the miseries of Europe during the to the battle of Austerlitz, a free, honlast seventy years, it had its origin in ored, prosperous, simple, and Catholic the revolutions in France. For many country, amidst the shock of empires centuries the Tyrolese had enjoyed as and the degradation of all principle large an amount of national liberty as which characterized the eighteenth was possible under the old political century of European history. system of Europe. Subjected to the At length the storm burst upon the sway of the Austrian house of Hapsburg, heads of the mountaineers. Such a the people were nevertheless practically race as the Tyrolese was intolerable free. In their mountain fastnesses alike to the military autocracy of they possessed a constitution in many Napoleon and the crafty officialism respects similar to that of the great free of such monarchs as Louis XIV of cities of Germany in the middle ages. France, and Joseph II of Austria. That virtual independence which the Joseph, however, had left the Tyrol powers of advancing commerce secured but little injured by those pernicious to Lubeck, to Freiburg, to Hamburg, "reforms" through which he had reto Erfurt, to Cologne, to Ratisbon, duced his German subjects to so low a and many other centres of peaceful level of religion, morals, and political traffic, was confirmed to the simpler strength, and the attachment of the Tyrolese by the strength of their Tyrolese to the Austrian monarchy mountain passes, and the undaunted remained ardent and unimpaired. vigor, courage, and straightforward- When Austria, however, was prostratness of their personal character. The ed at Austerlitz, and Napoleon, unreimperial dominion, purely monarchical | sisted, set about the re-arrangement

of

the various territories which formed Tyrolese mountains. A hundred years. the old Germanic empire, on no before they had been engaged in a country did the hand of the con- conflict with these same grasping queror fall more heavily than on the Bavarians, and had successfully reTyrol. The policy of Napoleon at sisted their invading troops, who, as that moment lay in elevating the now, were in alliance with the French. minor states of Germany to some In June, 1703, the Bavarian elector species of rivalry with the power of had entered the the Tyrol at the head Austria, hitherto, save so far as of 16,000 men, and seizing Innspruck, Prussia was concerned, exclusively its capital, had advanced up the country preponderant. He sought to convert with the view of subduing the people the petty electors into the creatures of in their fastnesses. The whole country France, or rather of himself, by turn- rose in arms, and the German soldiery ing their sovereigns into kings and felt what it was to attack a peasantdukes, and by enriching enriching them patriot in his own home. One of the with spoils torn from their more chief leaders of the people was of no powerful neighbors. Wurtemburg higher rank than that of postmaster; was made a kingdom, and received but the Bavarians were almost annithe Austrian possessions in Swabia. hilated. Shot down by the riflemen, Baden became a grand-duchy, with crushed by huge masses of rock and the gift of Constance, the Breisgau, timber rolled upon them from the tops and the Ortenau. Bavaria shared of the cliffs, one after another of the the most largely in the booty. Her various divisions of the invading army elector was turned into a king; with gave way and fled. The peasants

the sovereignty (such as it was when even fabricated cannon from hollowed conferred by Napoleon) of Auspach fir-trees sufficiently fire-proof to stand and Bayreuth, stolen from Prussia, eight or ten discharges. In the end, of and a considerable slice of the Austrian the 16,000 who had entered the Tyrol, territories, of which the most impor- only 5,000 ever regained Bavaria. tant portion was the Tyrol. The A less prosperous issue attended the creatures of the conqueror and his heroic resistance made in 1806 to the Bavarian serf-king, endeavored to enforcement of the Bavarian usurpation, infuse an anti-German spirit into accompanied as it was by a reckless his subjects; and on the 1st of January, violation of the engagement by which 1806, the Bavarian State-Gazette, Maximilian Joseph, the Bavarian announced the great achievements sovereign, had bound himself to respect with the words, "Long live Napoleon, intact the national rights and customs the restorer of the Bavarian king- of the Tyrolese people. The act by dom!" while a herd of writers attempt- which he professed to inaugurate his ed to prove that the Bavarians were rule of the Tyrol, dated January 14, not German by ancestry, but originally 1806, promised "not only strongly to a Gallic tribe under Gallic sovereigns. uphold the constitution of the country Nowhere was the usurping power of and the well-earned rights and Bavaria more hateful than among the privileges of the people, but also to

promote their welfare." This pledge, fervent piety which loved thus to remoreover, was repeated again and mind itself of the nothingness of time again with an obtrusive reiteration, and the goodness of God, wherever the which, to those who knew what laborer's toils were carried on, or the Bavaria meant by promoting a nation's traveller's steps might take him. Even welfare, was sufficient to awaken the now, the few that remain of these gravest apprehensions. monuments of humble devotion touch

In a certain sense, amiable and bene- the heart of the non-Catholic visitor; volent, Maximilian of Bavaria was a and how much more that of the true disciple of the Austrian Joseph II. Catholic, more sweetly than the most Nominally Catholic, nominally liberal, magnificent achievements of Christian and nominally philosophical, the politi- art in the rich centres of a luxurious cal system adopted and carried out by population. But to the Bavarian and the "reforming" emperor was in French illuminati these were hateful reality and result as anti-Catholic, objects, and the Tyrolese saw them despotic and shallow, as any one of levelled to the ground with every mark those many theories which have been of ridicule and contempt; while images, devised for the sudden regeneration of crucifixes, relics, long held in veneramankind in the cabinets of self-con- tion and associated with the reminisceited sophists. The Bavarian king cences of generations of faith, were lost no time in proving himself an destroyed, or, what was worse, sold to adept in this pernicious school. Every the Jews.

thing the Tyrolese held dear, every When religion was thus treated, thing that constituted their happiness liberty of course fared no better. In in this life and their hopes for eternity, former times, no recruits for the was attacked under the pretence that Austrian services were levied by the it was for their good, that national emperor in the Tyrol, with the excephonor, personal liberty, venerated tions of those for the rifle-corps; and customs, and religious objects of these enjoyed peculiar privileges of veneration, should be torn from them their own, electing their commanders and trampled under foot by insolent and wearing their national dress. strangers. "Jesuit obscuratism" was, Bavarians laughed at these rights; and of course, the cant cry with which the an attempted military conscription new measures were heralded. Vulgar served only to kindle the ardor of the Bavarian official insolence entered into mountaineers to a more strenuous a league with the infidel frivolity of determination to seize the first moment the French philosophism of Voltaire for throwing off the usurping yoke. and the Revolution, and hand in hand proceeded to "reform" the Tyrol.

The

The ancient Tyrolean Diet was unceremoniously dissolved, the Bavarians The first blows were naturally aimed not even thinking it worth while to at what they called "superstition." preserve the semblance of indepenThe Tyrol abounded with small moun- dence; while they showed their contain chapels, whose artistic simplicity tempt for Tyrolean nationality by was a symbol of the pure, honest and abolishing the very name of Tyrol,