Tagged by Delphi and Complicated Mama

I was tagged by Delphi and by Complicated Mama:

The rules are simple. Look up from the computer, look around the room where you're sitting and pick up the closest book. And closest really means closest. No cheating by running upstairs to unearth your pink-highlighted college copy of The Critique of Pure Reason or the Prolegomena. Open the book, turn to page 123, count down to the fifth sentence on that page, and then post the next three sentences.

I'm sitting at the dining table, which doubles as junk / things to be filed / laptop table and the nearest books were coffee table style books in the book case in the open plan sitting room. So there were several equidistant books, but not all of them had 123 pages. The first one that did:

"Des envahisseurs tyroliens incendient Ramosch, mais sont repoussés avec l'aide des hommes de la Haute-Engadine.

1487 - 1498: Des démêlés entre l'empereur Maximilien 1er et les Confédérés engendrent la guerre de Souabe (aussi appelée guerre de l'Engadine)

1499: Plus de 8000 Autrichiens envahissent l'Engadine et pénètrent jusqu'à Brail."

This book is about the Engadine, a mountainous province of south-eastern Switzerland, where the first language is Romansch, a dying, Latin-based language but recognised as one of the four official languages of the country. My father-in-law is orginally from this area and Romansch is his first language.

He had two copies of this book, one in Romansch and one in French, and he gave the French one to us. Page 123 happens to be a date table of events and I confess to never having laid eyes on it before.

Lots of other stuff happened in 1499, but I'm limited to three sentences, so a bit of a cliff-hanger there. Do you really want to know what happened after the 8000 Austrians invaded Engadine? Well, go on then:

"En battant en retraite, ils pillent et incendient les villages. A Scuol, ils contraignent les Bas-Engadinois à rendre hommage à l'Autriche. Bataille décisive dans l'étranglement de Calven dans le Val Venosta supérieur. 6000 Grisons luttent contre 15'000 Autrichiens qui sont battus après avoir subi de grosses pertes."

Full translation:

"Tyrolean invaders burned Ramosch, but were repelled with the help of men from Upper Engadine

1487 - 1498: Quarrels between the emperor Maximilian I and the Confederates trigger the Souabe war (also known as the Engadine war).

1499: More than 8000 Austrians invade Engadine and reach as far as Brail. Fighting in retreat, they pillaged and burned villages. In Scuol, they forced the inhabitants of Lower Engadine to pay hommage to Austria. A decisive battle in the bottleneck of Calven in the upper Val Venosta. 6000 men of Graubunden fought against 15'000 Austrians who were beaten after suffering enormous losses."

This meme seems to have done the rounds, so I won't tag anyone else. Artblog has also tagged me but that will be for another day.