k grimly.
According to the Strasburg chronicler, this Hagenbach, at the north,
and his colleague, the Count of Blamont, at the south, did not have
more than six or eight thousand men apiece, but they left Hun-like
reputations behind them. Devastation, slaughter, pillage in houses and
churches, all in the name of the duke, contributed to the zeal with
which the Austrian's return was ratified by popular acclamation, and
with which the contingents sent to Alsace by the confederates were
received.

Sigismund's letter to Charles is casual in tone and obscure in
phraseology. A statement presented somewhat later to the emperor by
the _Basse Union_ is more precise in the justification offered for the
events and in the grievances rehearsed.[10] That is, Sigismund treats
the transaction as a purely financial one, naturally completed between
him and his creditor by the offer to liquidate his debt. The plea made
by the Alsatians and their friends is, that Charles had failed to keep
his solemn engagements and that his appointed lieutenant had been
peculiarly odious and had broken the laws of God and man, and that the
mercenaries employed by him, the Burgundians, Lombardians, and their
fellows, had pitilessly ravaged the county of Ferrette, the Sundgau,
and the diocese of Basel. The charges are itemised.[11]

"All this, well-known to the Duke of Burgundy, has neither been
checked nor punished by him. In consequence, our gracious Seigneur
of Austria has been obliged to restore the land and people to his
sovereignty and that of the House of Austria, which he has done
with God's aid to prevent the complete annihilation and total
destruction of land and people."

Charles did not hasten to Alsace to settle matters in person, but
pursued his intention of reducing Cologne to the archbishop's control,
undoubtedly thinking that the base which would then be open to the
archbishop's protector on the lower Rhine would facilitate his
operations in the upper valleys. Meanwhile the Emperor Frederic had
emphatically declared that he alone was the Defender of the Diocese,
and that the unholy alliance between Robert and Charles was a menace
to the empire. His letters to Charles exhorted him to abandon the
enterprise and to accept mediation; those to the electors, princes,
and cities of the empire urged them to defend Cologne against Burgundy
until he himself arrived on the scene. There was a hot correspondence
between all p