"Well, Mr. Tax-collector," said Wallner, with mock politeness, "I
will tell you, then, how you Bavarians have treated us for four
years past, and only when you know all our grievances will we settle
our accounts. Listen, then, to what you have done to us, and what we
complain of. You have behaved toward us as perjured liars and
scoundrels, and I will prove it to you. In the first place, then, in
1805, when, to our intense grief and regret, our emperor was obliged
to cede the Tyrol to Bavaria, the King of Bavaria, in a letter which
he wrote to us, solemnly guaranteed our constitution and our ancient
privileges and liberties. That is what your king promised in 1805.
To be sure, we did not put much confidence in what he said, for we
well knew that when the big cat wants to devour the little mouse, it
treats the victim at first with great kindness and throws a small
bit of bacon to it; but no sooner does the mouse take it than the
cat pounces upon its unsuspecting victim and devours it. And such
was our fate too; the cat Bavaria wanted to swallow the little mouse
Tyrol; not even our name was to be left to us, and we were to be
called Southern Bavarians instead of Tyrolese. Besides, our ancient
Castle of Tyrol, the sacred symbol of our country, was dismantled
and destroyed. You thought probably we would forget the past and the
history of the Tyrol, and all that we are, if we no longer saw the
Castle of Tyrol, where the dear Margaret Maultasch solemnly
guaranteed to her Tyrolese their liberties, great privileges, and
independence, for all time to come. But all was written in our
hearts, and your infamous conduct engraved it only the more
lastingly thereon. You took from us not only our name, but also our
constitution, which all Tyrolese love as their most precious
treasure. The representative estates were suppressed, and the
provincial funds seized. No less than eight new and oppressive taxes
were imposed, and levied with the utmost rigor; the very name of the