s about his
retreat to prepare his advance, was a mighty conqueror, full of
invention and resource and untold design.

He struck at once for the heart of the empire, made himself master of
Wurzburg, and overran the ecclesiastical principalities of the Rhine,
which were the basis of Catholic power. At Mentz Gustavus held his
court, treating the princes as his inferiors, endeavouring to
conciliate the population. He did not live to declare his schemes of
policy; but all men knew that he meant to be the head of a great
Protestant Confederation, and to disarm their adversaries by
secularising the dominions of the clergy. He had made no settlement
for the future when he marched against Bavaria, the other stronghold
of the League. Below Augsburg Gustavus forced the passage of the
Lech, which Tilly disputed, and where the latter received the wound
of which he died soon after, in the impregnable fortress of
Ingolstadt. For more than two centuries his remains were so perfectly
preserved that I have looked on his austere features. Down to the
last months of his life he had been victorious over every foe, and was
the most dangerous enemy of the Protestant cause. Legend took
possession of him, and down to the last generation he was accused of
being the destroyer of Magdeburg, and of having, from mere fanaticism,
deprived himself of his prize. All that he had achieved in incessant
triumph fell to pieces at his first defeat; and the armies of the
League no longer stood between Gustavus, now at the head of 100,000
men, and the Austrian capital. But his career of success ended with
the fall of his great rival.

When Tilly was defeated, the despairing emperor appealed once more to
Wallenstein, who was living in great splendour, aloof from affairs,
and showing as much capacity in the administration of his domains as
he had shown in war. It was not two years since he had been deposed
in disgrace, at the instance of the German princes. Therefore when,
in their extremity, they turned to him for protection, they placed
themselves in the power of an enemy on whom they had inflicted a
mortal injury. He had felt it so deeply that he was in actual treaty,
at the time, with Gustavus, for an expedition against Vienna. As Duke
of Mecklenburg he was an independent potentate, and he regarded
himself as released from the allegiance of a subject. Before breaking
off his negotiation with the Swede, he beheld his enemies at his feet.
Wal