whose fidelity reliance could be placed, to seize
the persons of the Duke of Friedland and of his two associates, Illo and
Terzky, and keep them in close confinement, till they should have an
opportunity of being heard, and of answering for their conduct; but if
this could not be accomplished quietly, the public danger required that
they should be taken dead or live. At the same time, General Gallas
received a patent commission, by which these orders of the Emperor were
made known to the colonels and officers, and the army was released from
its obedience to the traitor, and placed under Lieutenant-General
Gallas, till a new generalissimo could be appointed. In order to bring
back the seduced and deluded to their duty, and not to drive the guilty
to despair, a general amnesty was proclaimed, in regard to all offences
against the imperial majesty committed at Pilsen.

General Gallas was not pleased with the honour which was done him. He
was at Pilsen, under the eye of the person whose fate he was to dispose
of; in the power of an enemy, who had a hundred eyes to watch his
motions. If Wallenstein once discovered the secret of his commission,
nothing could save him from the effects of his vengeance and despair.
But if it was thus dangerous to be the secret depositary of such a
commission, how much more so to execute it? The sentiments of the
generals were uncertain; and it was at least doubtful whether, after the
step they had taken, they would be ready to trust the Emperor's
promises, and at once to abandon the brilliant expectations they had
built upon Wallenstein's enterprise. It was also hazardous to attempt
to lay hands on the person of a man who, till now, had been considered
inviolable; who from long exercise of supreme power, and from habitual
obedience, had become the object of deepest respect; who was invested
with every attribute of outward majesty and inward greatness; whose very
aspect inspired terror, and who by a nod disposed of life and death! To
seize such a man, like a common criminal, in the midst of the guards by
whom he was surrounded, and in a city apparently devoted to him; to
convert the object of this deep and habitual veneration into a subject
of compassion, or of contempt, was a commission calculated to make even
the boldest hesitate. So deeply was fear and veneration for their
general engraven in the breasts of the soldiers, that even the atrocious
crime of high treason could not wholly eradicate