revent it by the most rapid and effective measures.

This disgraceful conduct of the Emperor might have justified a reprisal,
but Maximilian was too old a statesman to listen to the voice of
passion, where policy alone ought to be heard. He had not derived from
the truce the advantages he expected. Far from tending to accelerate a
general peace, it had a pernicious influence upon the negociations at
Munster and Osnaburg, and had made the allies bolder in their demands.
The French and Swedes had indeed removed from Bavaria; but, by the loss
of his quarters in the Suabian circle, he found himself compelled either
to exhaust his own territories by the subsistence of his troops, or at
once to disband them, and to throw aside the shield and spear, at the
very moment when the sword alone seemed to be the arbiter of right.
Before embracing either of these certain evils, he determined to try a
third step, the unfavourable issue of which was at least not so certain,
viz., to renounce the truce and resume the war.

This resolution, and the assistance which he immediately despatched to
the Emperor in Bohemia, threatened materially to injure the Swedes, and
Wrangel was compelled in haste to evacuate that kingdom. He retired
through Thuringia into Westphalia and Lunenburg, in the hope of forming
a junction with the French army under Turenne, while the Imperial and
Bavarian army followed him to the Weser, under Melander and Gronsfeld.
His ruin was inevitable, if the enemy should overtake him before his
junction with Turenne; but the same consideration which had just saved
the Emperor, now proved the salvation of the Swedes. Even amidst all
the fury of the conquest, cold calculations of prudence guided the
course of the war, and the vigilance of the different courts increased,
as the prospect of peace approached. The Elector of Bavaria could not
allow the Emperor to obtain so decisive a preponderance as, by the
sudden alteration of affairs, might delay the chances of a general
peace. Every change of fortune was important now, when a pacification
was so ardently desired by all, and when the disturbance of the balance
of power among the contracting parties might at once annihilate the work
of years, destroy the fruit of long and tedious negociations, and
indefinitely protract the repose of Europe. If France sought to
restrain the Swedish crown within due bounds, and measured out her
assistance according to her successes and defeats, the