On the evening of the 9th of July, 1396, the glittering host
of Leopold appeared on an eminence overlooking the city of Sempach and
the beautiful lake on whose border it stands. The horses were fatigued
by their long and hurried march, and the crags and ravines, covered with
forest, were impracticable for the evolutions of cavalry. The impetuous
Leopold, impatient of delay, resolved upon an immediate attack,
notwithstanding the exhaustion of his troops, and though a few hours of
delay would bring strong reinforcements to his camp. He dismounted his
horsemen, and formed his whole force in solid phalanx. It was an
imposing spectacle, as six thousand men, covered from head to foot with
blazing armor, presenting a front of shields like a wall of burnished
steel, bristling with innumerable pikes and spears, moved with slow,
majestic tread down upon the city.
The confederate Swiss, conscious that the hour of vengeance had come, in
which they must conquer or be miserably slain, marched forth to meet the
foe, emboldened only by despair. But few of the confederates were in
armor. They were furnished with such weapons as men grasp when despotism
rouses them to insurrection, rusty battle-axes, pikes and halberts, and
two-handed swords, which their ancestors, in descending into the grave,
had left behind them.
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