ding observing the progress
of the siege by moonlight, when a ball struck immediately below it.

[Ehrenbreitstein, which had resisted the French under Marshal Boufflers
in 1680, and held out against Marceau (1795-96), finally capitulated to
the French after a prolonged siege in 1799. The fortifications were
dismantled when the French evacuated the fortress after the Treaty of
Luneville in 1801. The Treaty of Leoben was signed April 18, 1797.]

13.

Unsepulchred they roamed, and shrieked each wandering ghost.
Stanza lxiii. line 9.

The chapel is destroyed, and the pyramid of bones diminished to a small
number by the Burgundian Legion in the service of France; who anxiously
effaced this record of their ancestors' less successful invasions. A few
still remain, notwithstanding the pains taken by the Burgundians for
ages (all who passed that way removing a bone to their own country), and
the less justifiable larcenies of the Swiss postilions, who carried them
off to sell for knife-handles; a purpose for which the whiteness imbibed
by the bleaching of years had rendered them in great request. Of these
relics I ventured to bring away as much as may have made a quarter of a
hero, for which the sole excuse is, that if I had not, the next
passer-by might have perverted them to worse uses than the careful
preservation which I intend for them.

[Charles the Bold was defeated by the Swiss at the Battle of Morat, June
22, 1476. It has been computed that more than twenty thousand
Burgundians fell in the battle. At first, to avoid the outbreak of a
pestilence, the bodies were thrown into pits. "Nine years later ... the
mouldering remains were unearthed, and deposited in a building ... on
the shore of the lake, near the village of Meyriez.... During three
succeeding centuries this depository was several times rebuilt.... But
the ill-starred relics were not destined even yet to remain undisturbed.
At the close of the last century, when the armies of the French Republic
were occupying Switzerland, a regiment consisting mainly of Burgundians,
under the notion of effacing an insult to their ancestors, tore down the
'bone-house' at Morat, covered the contents with earth, and planted on
the mound 'a tree of liberty.' But the tree had no roots; the rains
washed away the earth; again the remains were exposed to view, and lay
bleaching in the sun for a quart