In Judah’s hallowed land.”
After the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, Ratisbon was by no means allowed to fall back into a centre of peace, for history tells us, as has been said, that fourteen times was it besieged during something less than a thousand years. In the Thirty Years’ War its position made it a frequent storm centre, and thrice within eight years did it undergo bombardment. The wonder is that so much of the old place survives after such a record. The last of the fourteen attacks on it (21 April, 1809) is probably the best known, thanks to the mnemonic value of poetry, for it was then that the “Incident of the French Camp,” of which Robert Browning wrote, is supposed to have occurred.
“You know we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away
On a little mound, Napoleon
Stood on our storming day....
Out ’twixt the battery smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew
Until he reached the mound....