Leopold I. died in 1705, and was succeeded by his son, Joseph I., who reigned only six years. Charles VI., Leopold’s younger son, followed, who appointed Karl Philipp, Palsgrave of Neuburg, Governor of Tirol. He was another pious ruler, and much beloved by the people; his memory being the more endeared to them, that he was their last independent prince. His reign benefited Innsbruck by the erection of the handsome Landhaus and the Gymnasium, and also by the extensive restoration of the Pfarrkirche. This occupied the site of the little chapel, the accorded privilege to which of hearing in it masses of obligation forms the earliest record of Innsbruck’s history. It had grown with the growth of the town, and had been added to by various sovereigns, and we have seen it gifted with Kranach’s Mariähilf. The earthquakes of 1667 and 1689 had left it so dilapidated, however, that Karl Philipp resolved to rebuild it on a much larger plan. He laid the first stone on May 12, 1717, in presence of his brother, the Bishop of Augsburg, and it was consecrated in 1724. It has the costliness and the vices of its date; its overloaded stucco ornaments are redeemed by the lavish use of the beautiful marbles of the country; the quarrying and fashioning these marbles occupied a hundred workmen, without counting labourers and apprentices, for the whole time during which the church was building. The frescoes setting forth the wonder-working patronage of St. James, on the roof and cupola, are by Kosmas Damian Asam, whose pencil, and that of his two sons, Kosmas and Egid, were entirely devoted to the decoration of churches and religious houses. There is a tradition, that as the fervent painter was putting the finishing touches to the figure of the saint, as he appears, mounted on his spirited charger as the patron of Compostella, in the cupola, he stepped back to see the effect of his work. Forgetting in his zeal the narrowness of the platform on which he stood, he would inevitably have been precipitated on to the pavement below, but that the strong arm of the saint he had been painting so lovingly, detached itself from the wall, and saved his client from the terrible fate![18] Other works of this reign were the Strafarbeitshaus, a great improvement on the former prison; and the church of St. John Nepomuk, in the Innrain, then a new and fashionable street. The canonization of the great martyr to the seal of Confession took place in 1730. Though properly a Bohemian saint, his memory is so beloved all through southern Germany, that all its divisions seem to lay a patriotic claim to him. His canonization was celebrated by a solemn function in the Pfarrkirche, lasting eight days; and the people were so stirred up to fervour by its observance, that they subscribed for the building of a church in his honour, the governor taking the lead in promoting it.
Maria Theresa succeeded her father, Charles VI., in 1742. She seems to have known how to attend to the affairs of every part of the Empire alike; and thus, while the whole country felt the benefit of her wise provisions, all the former splendours of the Tirolean capital revived. Maria Theresa frequently took up her residence at Innsbruck; and while benefiting trade by her expenditure, and by that of the visitors whom her court attracted, she set at the same time an edifying example of piety and a well-regulated life. Her associations with Innsbruck were nevertheless overshadowed by sad events more than once, though this does not appear to have diminished her affection for the place.
When Marshal Daun took a whole division of the Prussian army captive at Maxen in 1758, the officers, nine in number, were sent to Innsbruck for safe custody. Here they remained till the close of the war, five years later. This, and the furnishing some of its famous sharpshooters to the Austrian contingent, was the only contact Tirol had with the Seven Years’ War. Two years after (1765) Maria Theresa arranged that the marriage of her son (afterwards Leopold II.) with Maria Luisa, daughter of Charles III. of Spain, should take place there. The townspeople, sensible of the honour conferred on them, responded to it by adorning the city with the most festive display; not only with gay banners and hangings, but by improving the façades of their houses, and the roads and bridges, and erecting a triumphal arch of unusual solidity at the end of the Neustadt nearest Wilten, being that by which the royal pair would pass on their way from Italy; for Leopold was then Grand Duke of Tuscany. The theatre and public buildings were likewise put in order. Maria Theresa, with her husband Francis I., and all the Imperial family, arrived in Innsbruck on July 15, attracting a larger assemblage of great people than had been seen there even in its palmiest days. Banquets and gay doings filled up the interval till August 5, when Leopold and Maria Luisa made their entrance with unexampled pomp. The marriage was celebrated in the Pfarrkirche by Prince Clement of Saxony, Bishop of Ratisbon, assisted by seven other bishops. Balls, operas, banquets, illuminations, and the national Freischiessen, followed. But during all these fêtes, an unseasonable gloom, which is popularly supposed to bode evil, overclouded the August sky, usually so clear and brilliant in Innsbruck. On the 18th, a grand opera was given to conclude the festivities; on his way back from it Francis I. was seized with a fit, and died in the course of the night in the arms of his son, afterwards Joseph II.
Though Maria Theresa’s master mind had caused her to take the lead in all public matters, she was devotedly attached to her husband, and this sudden blow was severely felt by her. She could not bear that the room in which he expired should ever be again used for secular purposes, and had it converted into a costly chapel; at the same time she made great improvements and additions to the rest of the Burg. She always wore mourning to the end of her life, and always, when state affairs permitted, passed the eighteenth day of every month in prayer and retirement. A remarkable monument remains of both the affection and public spirit of this talented princess. Driving out to the Abbey of Wilten in one of the early days of mourning, while some of the tokens of the rejoicing, so unexpectedly turned into lamentation, were still unremoved, the sight of the handsome triumphal arch reminded her of a resolution suggested by Francis I. to replace it by one of similar design in more permanent materials. Her first impulse was to reject the thought as a too painful reminder of the past; but reflection on the promised benefit to the town prevailed over personal feelings, and she gave orders for the execution of the work; but to make it a fitting memorial of the occasion, she ordered that while the side facing the road from Italy should be a Triumphpforte, and recall by its bas-reliefs the glad occasion which caused its erection, the side facing the town should be a Trauerpforte, and set forth the melancholy conclusion of the same. The whole was executed by Tirolean artists, and of Tirolean marbles. She founded also a Damenstift, for the maintenance of twelve poor ladies of noble birth, who, without taking vows, bound themselves to wear mourning and pray for the soul of Francis I. and those of his house. Another great work of Maria Theresa was the development she gave to the University of Innsbruck.
After her death, which took place in 1780, Joseph II., freed from the restraints of her influence, gave full scope to his plans for meddling with ecclesiastical affairs, for which his intercourse with Russia had perhaps given him a taste. Pius VI. did not spare himself a journey to Vienna, to exert the effect of his personal influence with the Emperor, who it would seem did not pay much heed to his advice, and so disaffected his people by his injudicious innovations, that at the time of his death the whole empire, which the skill of Maria Theresa had consolidated, was in a state of complete disorganization.[19] Though increased by his ill-gotten share of Poland, he lost the Low Countries, and Hungary was so disaffected, that had he not been removed by the hand of death (1790), it is not improbable it would have thrown off its allegiance also. Leopold II., his brother, who only reigned two years, saved the empire from dissolution by prudent concessions, by rescinding many of Joseph’s hasty measures, and abandoning his policy of centralization.
One religious house which Joseph II. did not suppress was the Damenstift of Innsbruck, of which his sister, the Archduchess Maria Elizabeth, undertook the government in 1781; and during the remainder of her life held a sort of court there which was greatly for the benefit of the city. Pius VI. visited her on his way back from Vienna on the evening of May 7, 1782. The whole town was illuminated, and all the religious in the town went out to meet him, followed by the whole body of the people. Late as was the hour (a quarter to ten, says a precise chronicle) he had no sooner reached the apartment prepared for him in the Burg, than he admitted whole crowds to audience, and the enthusiasm with which the religious Tirolese thronged round him surpasses words. Many, possessed with a sense of the honour of having the vicar of Christ in their very midst, remained all night in the surrounding Rennplatz, as it were on guard round his abode. In the morning, after hearing mass, he imparted the Apostolic Benediction from the balcony of the Burg, and proceeded on his way over the Brenner.
Leopold II. had not been three months on the throne before he came to Innsbruck to receive the homage of his loyal Tirolese, who took this opportunity of winning from him the abrogation of many Josephinischen measures, particularly that reducing their University to a mere Lyceum. He was succeeded in 1792 by his son, Francis II.; but the mighty storm of the French Revolution was threatening, and absorbed all his attention with the preservation of his empire, and the defence of Tirol seems to have been overlooked. Year by year danger gathered round the outskirts of her mountain fastnesses. Whole hosts were engaged all around; yet there were but a handful, five thousand at most, of Austrian troops stationed within her frontier. The importance of obtaining the command of such a base of operations, which would at once have afforded a key to Italy and Austria, did not escape Bonaparte. Joubert was sent with fifteen thousand men to gain possession of the country, and advanced as far as Sterzing. Innsbruck was thrown into a complete panic, and I am sorry to have to record that the Archduchess Maria Elizabeth took her flight. The Austrian Generals, Kerpen and Laudon, did not deem it prudent, with their small contingent, to engage the French army. Nevertheless, the Tirolese, instead of being disheartened at this pusillanimity, with their wonted spirit rose as one man; a decisive battle was fought at Spinges, a hamlet near Sterzing, where a village girl fought so bravely, and urged the men on to the defence of their country so generously, that though her name is lost, her courage won her a local reputation as lasting as that of Joan of Arc or the ‘Maid of Zaragoza,’ under the title of Das Mädchen von Spinges.[20] Driven out hence, the French troops made the best of their way to join the main army in Carinthia. After this the enemy left Tirol at Peace for some years, with the exception of one or two border inroads, which were resolutely repulsed. One of these is so characteristic of the religious customs of Tirol, that, though not strictly belonging to the history of Innsbruck, I cannot forbear mentioning it. The French, under Massena, had in 1799 been twice repulsed from Feldkirch with great loss. Divisions which had never known a reverse were decimated and routed by the practised guns of the mountaineers. Thinking their victory assured, the peasants, after the manner of volunteer troops, had dispersed but too soon, to return to their flocks and tillage. Warily perceiving his advantage, Massena led his troops back over the border silently by night, intending in the morning to take the unsuspecting town by storm—a plan which did not seem to have a chance of failure. But it happened to be Holy Saturday. Suddenly, just as he was about to give the order for the attack, the bells of all the churches far and near, which had been so still during the preceding days, burst all together upon his ear with the jubilant Auferstehungsfeier.[21] General and troops, alike unfamiliar with religious times and seasons, took the sound for the alarm bells calling out the Landsturm. In the belief that they were betrayed, a precipitate retreat was ordered. But the night no longer covered the march; and the peasants, who were gathered in their villages for the Offices of the Church, were quickly collected for the pursuit. This abortive expedition cost the French army three thousand men.
In the meantime the Archduchess had returned to Innsbruck, and all went on upon its old footing, as if there were no enemy to fear. So little was another disturbance expected, that the Archduchess devoted herself to the promotion of local improvements, including that of the Gottesacker. This is one of the favourite Sunday afternoon resorts of the Innsbruckers, and is well worthy of a visit. The site was first destined for the purpose by the Emperor Maximilian. It was gifted with all the indulgences accorded to the Campo Santo of Rome by the Pope, and in token of the same some earth from San Lorenzo fuori le mura was brought hither at the time of its consecration by the Bishop of Brixen in 1510. It has, according to the frequent German arrangement, an upper and a lower chapel; the former, dedicated to S. Anne; the latter, as usual, to S. Michael, though the people commonly call it die Veitskapelle, on account of some cures of S. Vitus’ dance wrought here. The arcades which now surround the cemetery were the result of the introduction of Italian customs later in the sixteenth century. Some of the oldest and noblest names of Tirol are to be found upon the monuments here, some of which cannot fail to attract attention. The bas-reliefs sculptured by Collin for that of the Hohenhauser family, and those he prepared for his own, may be reckoned among his masterpieces. Some which are adorned with paintings would be very interesting if the weather had spared them more. The Archduchess had prepared her own resting-place here also, but was not destined to occupy it. The disastrous defeat of Austerlitz filled her with alarm, and she once more fled from Innsbruck, this time not to return.
This was the year 1805, and a sad one it was for Tirol. The treaty of Pressburg had given Tirol to Bavaria, and Bavaria and Tirol had never in any age been able to understand each other. Willingly would the Tirolese have opposed their entrance; but the Bavarians, who knew every pass as well as themselves, were enabled to pour in the allied troops under Marshal Ney in such force, that they were beyond their power to resist. The fortresses near the Bavarian frontier were razed, and Innsbruck occupied. On February 11, 1806, Marshal Ney left, and the town was formally delivered over to Bavarian rule. The most unpopular changes of government were adopted, particularly in ecclesiastical matters and in forcing the peasants into the army; the University also was once more made into a Lyceum. But the Landsturm was not idle, and the Archduke Johann, Leopold’s brother, came into Tirol to encourage them. Maturing their plans in secret, the patriots, under Andreas Hofer, who had been to Vienna in January to declare his plans and get them confirmed by his government, and Speckbacher, broke into Innsbruck on April 13, 1809, where the townspeople received them with loud acclamations; and after a desperate and celebrated conflict at Berg Isel, succeeded in completely ridding it of the invaders. The Bavarian arms on the Landhaus were shattered to atoms, and when the Eagle replaced them, the people climbed the ladders to kiss it. This was the first great act of the Befreiungskämpfe which have made ‘the year Nine’ memorable in the annals of Tirol, and, I may say of Europe, for it was one of the noblest struggles of determined patriotism those annals have to boast, and at the same time the most successful effort of volunteer arms. Hofer accepted the title of Schützenkommandant, and was lodged in the imperial Burg, while his peasant neighbours took the office of guards; but he altered nothing of his simple habits, nor his national costume. His frugal expenses amounted to forty-five kreuzers a day, and he lost no opportunity of expressing that he did nothing on his own account, but all in the name of the Emperor. On May 19 the Bavarians laid siege to the town; but the defenders of the country, supported by a few regular Austrian troops, obliged them by the end of a fortnight to decamp. On June 30 they returned with a force of twenty-four thousand men; but other feats of arms of the patriots in all parts of Tirol showed that its people were unconquerable, and for the third time Hofer took possession of Innsbruck. In the meantime, however, the Peace of Schönbrunn, of October 25, had nullified their achievements, though the memory of their bravery could never be blotted out, and always asserted its power. Nor could the brave people, even when bidden by the Emperor himself to desist, believe that his orders were otherwise than wrung from him, nor could their loyalty be quenched. Hofer’s stern sense of subordination made him advise abstention from further strife, but the more ardent patriots refused to listen, and ended by leading him to join them. A desultory warfare was now kept up, with no very effectual result, but yet with a spirit and determination which convinced the Bavarians that they could never subdue such a people, and predisposed them to consent to the evacuation of their country in 1814; for they saw that
Freedom from every hut