The Spell of Switzerland

by Nathan Haskell Dole

“And the day being the second of March, the companies (bandons) being assembled in warlike order, the Messieurs des Ligues before sunrise on the plain between Boudry and Bevaix resolved to dash immediately at the Burgundian without waiting longer for the bandières of Zürich and the horsemen who were late and not as yet arrived at Neuchâtel.

“On the other side, and at the same hour, Duke Charles advanced with great noise of trumpets and clarions. Those of Schwyz, Thun and others (whose names we can not easily recall) started forth above Valmarcus. The bandières of Soleure, Bern, Lucerne, Fribourg, and that of Neuchâtel which included three hundred citizens and more, as well as that of Landeron and the hommes royés of M. de Langern, led straight to the plain; those of Siebenthal, Unterwald, Morat, Biel and others followed the shore of the lake.

“Soon before the battle-line of the Ligues the Burgundian troops superbly accoutered came forth; there was found the duke with his most trusty cavaliers. Soon the charge was made; soon Les Chartreux de la Lance were crushed and overthrown. After this attack the Ligues, spying all the swarming crowd (formilière) of the Burgundians near Concize, planted their pikes and banners in the ground, and with one accord, falling on their knees, asked the favor of their mighty God.

“The duke, seeing this act, swore: ‘By Saint George these dogs are crying mercy. Cannoniers, fire on those villains!’

“But all his words were of no avail. The Ligues like hail (gresles) fell upon his men, slashing, thrusting those handsome gallants on all sides. So well and so completely discomfited all along the route were those poor Burgundians that they were scattered like smoke borne away by the wind.”

Other chroniclers tell of the defeat of the duke and the brave deeds of the allies, and how the duke’s horsemen tried to escape but were run down by the infantry and many were killed. Another tells how the sun dazzled them as from a mirror and how the trumpet of Ury bellowed and the horns of Lucerne sent forth such terrible sounds that the people of the Duke of Burgundy were seized with terror and fled. The duke tried to stop them, but it was all in vain; they abandoned their camp, and all its treasures fell into the hands of the allies.

These contemporary accounts are all more or less full of inaccuracies; it is well known now exactly how the battle took place and how the Burgundian army of about fifty thousand with five hundred pieces of artillery was so completely defeated.

The mere facts were these. On Feb. 18, 1476, the Duke Charles assaulted Grandson; on the twenty-eighth the garrison surrendered and the next day were all massacred. On the same day the duke went to the Château of Vaulxmarcus (now Vaumarcus). Its master, Messire de Neuchâtel, surrendered, throwing himself on his knees and begging to be allowed to retire with his garrison of forty. The duke kept the baron but let the garrison go, who were wildly indignant at not having been allowed to fight. The forty scattered and spread the news, and that brought the allies together. The duke had an impregnable position, but the Swiss, by making a feint of attacking Vaulxmarcus, tried to draw him out. Had he not lacked provisions for so formidable an army, he might have resisted, but he had to advance on Neuchâtel, and the sudden attack of the confederates, who numbered only between twenty and twenty-five thousand men, was irresistible. Many of the Swiss cities possess relics of this great victory, which is the one great event for the Cantons to exult over and no doubt did much to prepare the way for the future Confederacy. At Soleure one sees the costume of Charles’s court jester. Lucerne has the great seal of Burgundy. At the University Library at Geneva are miniatures which belonged to the duke.

If the Duke of Brunswick left twenty million francs to Geneva,—and, by the way, the heirs of his illegitimate daughter are trying to get it away from the town,—Neuchâtel had a benefactor in David de Purry, who left four and a half millions, and he also has a statue. I did not stop to look into the Municipal Museum, but I took the train to the top of the Chaumont, which gives a fine bird’s-eye view of the city, the lake, and the whole range of the Alps.

I crossed the lake from Neuchâtel to Morat. The lake is a little less than eight kilometers long and is about one hundred and fifty-three meters deep. It connects with the Lake of Bienne by a stream tamed to service. It connects by the Broye with the Lake of Morat, which is like a family reduced in circumstances. It once washed the walls of the ancient city of Aventicum, capital of the Helvetii, and after the Romans captured it, a city of large importance. Both lake and town have shrunk. The lake is about as long as the Lake of Neuchâtel is wide, and the town, now Avenches, lives in its past. Omar Khayyâm would have found a topic for a poem in the solitary Corinthian column from the temple of Apollo standing nearly twelve meters high and serving only as the support for a family of storks most respectable as far as their antiquity is concerned.