yed: they were incredulous, believing the official
documents to be forged; and, although he knew better, Von Kolb
strengthened them in this belief. He, together with Peter Kemenater, a
wealthy wirth, and George Lantschner, the priest of Weitenthal, urged
the people to rise and fight for their country, setting at naught any
treaty of peace. Thus, though the French troops were allowed by the
town authorities to enter Bruneck on November 5, the people remained
in a state of turbulence, the men of Taufers immediately rising and
fighting the French at Gaisz, the first village in their valley,
and although defeated and driven back, the neighboring peasants
of Aufhofen took up the attack, having in their turn their village
plundered and some of the inhabitants killed by the enemy.

Von Kolb and his party next encouraged the Landsturm or people _en
masse_ to assail the French general Moreau in Brixen, causing his
friend, General Almeras, to leave Bruneck in charge of a small troop
and to hurry to his rescue. The very same afternoon (November 30)
the priest Lantschner, accompanied by the wirth of Muehlen in the
Taufersthal, Johann Hofer, marched at the head of an army of peasants
on Bruneck. In the mean time, Almeras, prevented by a general uprising
from reaching Brixen, turned back with his troops dressed as a
private, and made most of the way by mountain-paths on foot, fearing
to remain in his carriage, as immediately after starting his cook
had been shot dead on the coach-box. Approaching Bruneck, the general
discovered the concourse of the armed peasants to be far greater than
he had imagined, and a whole day elapsed before his entry into the
town could be effected. On December 2 the insurgents advanced nearer
and nearer, pouring down from the neighboring village of Percha, which
they had chosen as their head-quarters. At one o'clock they pushed
before them two sledges loaded with hay from Edelsheim, and one filled
with straw from Percha, and, forming by this means a barricade in
front of the Capuchin monastery, began firing, whilst troops of
peasants still marched forward from other villages. More used to
plough-shares than swords, however, the peasants, numbering ten
thousand men, instead of surrounding the town, as they might easily
have done, merely attacked it on the north side, thus enabling the
French general with a handful of cavalry and infantry to surprise
them in the rear. Confusion and a most ignominious defeat e