The church there is a very fair one, and famous for a miracle. In 1384 a certain man, whose name has been preserved there by adequate and unbroken record, refused to content himself on Easter day with the Eucharist as offered to the people, and demanded to receive that which was wont to be given to the priesthood alone. While he had this in his mouth the earth beneath him opened and swallowed him up to the neck, and while he held on for a moment to the corner of the altar the priest withdrew the Host from his mouth. They still exhibit the hole covered with an iron grating, the altar which bears the impress of this man’s fingers, and the Host of a reddish hue like drops of blood. We found there, written in recent Latin, an account how a certain Tiroler, who had swallowed some days before a bit of flesh which stuck in his throat and could neither be swallowed nor vomited, made a vow and repaired to this church, where he was healed forthwith. On quitting this place we found on the high land several nice villages, and after half-an-hour’s descent, we perceived at the foot of the hill a fair hamlet finely placed, and high above it on a cloven and seemingly inaccessible rock, a magnificent castle commanding the road we had come down, which is narrow and cut in the mountain side. The road is scarcely wide enough to let pass a common cart, as in divers other places amongst these mountains, so much so that the carters hereabout are wont to reduce the size of their carts a foot at the least. Beyond this we came upon a valley of great extent through which the Inn flows to join the Danube at Vienna. In Latin it is called Œnus. It is five or six days’ journey by water from Insprug to Vienna. To M. de Montaigne this valley seemed the fairest country he had ever seen, now narrowing itself with the mountains pressing close on it, now spreading out wide on our side of the river—the left—and forming a space meet for cultivation on the very slopes of the mountains, which were not too steep for this, and now expanding on the other bank. Next it would reveal to the eye platforms on two or three different levels, one above the other, and everywhere fair houses of noblemen and churches. And all this in a country shut and walled in on every side by mountains of immeasurable height. On our side of the valley we espied in a rocky place a crucifix, set up where no man could have gone save by being let down by cords from above.[85] They say that the Emperor Maximilian, grandfather of Charles V., lost himself one day while hunting in these mountains; and, as a witness of the danger he escaped, he erected this image, a story which is recorded by a painting in the hall of the Arquebusiers at Augsburg. We arrived that evening, after travelling three leagues, at Insprug.[86]
INSBRUCK
Reproduced from Civitates Orbis Terrarum
To face p. 158, vol. i.
IV
TIROL
This is the chief town of the county of Tirol, Œnopontum in Latin, the residence of Fernand, Archduke of Austria.[87] It is a very beautiful little town and well built, standing in the bottom of the valley and full of fountains and running water, a convenience most common in all the towns we have seen in Germany and Switzerland. The houses are almost all built terraced, and we found lodgment at the “Rose,” an excellent house where they served us on plates of pewter. As to napkins of French fashion, we had already had them given us several days previous. Round about some of the beds they had hung curtains which, as typical of the character of the people, were fine and rich, of a certain sort of cloth, slashed and open worked, and also very short and narrow. In fine they were quite unfitted for the use to which we put such things, and there was besides a little tester, three fingers wide, with a lot of tassels. They gave me for M. de Montaigne white sheets trimmed with lace, four fingers wide, as is the custom of most towns in Germany. All night long men go about the streets crying the hour. Everywhere we have been they have the fashion of serving the fish the same time as the meat; but, as far as we saw, they offer no meat on fish days. On the Monday we departed, travelling along the right bank of the Inn through a fair plain for two leagues until we reached Hala.
We made the journey solely to see this place. Like Insprug it is a small town, about the size of Libourne, on the river Inn, which we crossed by a bridge. Here is produced all the salt used in Germany; they make nine hundred loaves thereof weekly at one crown apiece, the loaves being about the thickness of a half-hogshead, and somewhat of the same shape, for the vessel which serves as a mould is of the aforesaid kind. This traffic belongs to the archduke, and is carried on at a vast cost. To produce the salt they had gathered together the greatest store of wood I ever saw, for they boil in vast stoves of iron the brine, which is brought from a mountain more than two good leagues distant.
There are several fine churches, notably one belonging to the Jesuits, and this, as well as the one in Insprug, M. de Montaigne visited. Other churches there are, richly adorned and finely situated. After dinner we recrossed the river, forasmuch as the fine palace where the Archduke Fernand of Austria dwells is there situated. M. de Montaigne desired to kiss the hand of this prince, as he passed thereby in the morning, but from what a certain count told him he learned that the archduke was holding a council.
When we retraced our steps thither after dinner, and found that the archduke was in his garden, we hoped at least to be presented to him; but those who went to inform him that Messieurs were there, and at his service, brought word back that he prayed to be excused from granting an interview at that moment, but that on the morrow he would find it convenient so to do. Meantime, if Messieurs desired any favour of him, they might state their wants to a certain Milanese count. This cold reception, added to the fact that he refused to allow us to see the castle, ruffled somewhat M. de Montaigne’s temper; and when we spoke of this offence to an officer of the household this gentleman told him that the prince had said he was averse from seeing Frenchmen, for that the house of France was the foe of his own. We then returned to Insprug.
We next saw in a church eighteen magnificent bronze statues of the princes and princesses of the house of Austria.[88] We also went to sup with the Cardinal of Austria[89] and the Marquis of Burgant,[90] sons of the archduke by a concubine, the daughter of a merchant of Augsburg. She bore him only these two sons, and then he married her to make them legitimate. She died during the present year and all the court still wears mourning. Here the ceremonial is almost the same as with our princes. The hall, the dais, and the chairs were all covered with black cloth. The cardinal, the elder, is not, I fancy, more than twenty; he drank wine freely diluted with water, and the marquis naught but sweet drink.[91] The dinner was not served in a closed tray,[92] but everything uncovered, the service of viands being conducted as with us. When they took their seats they placed themselves some distance from the table, which was moved towards them, laden with dishes; the cardinal sat highest, the right-hand place being always reckoned the chief one. In this palace we saw two tennis-courts and a seemly garden.