ossing the frontier, Count Thurn boldly entered Austria and, meeting
no foe capable of retarding his steps, he pushed vigorously on even to
the very gates of Vienna. As he had no heavy artillery capable of
battering down the walls, and as he knew that he had many partisans
within the walls of the city, he took possession of the suburbs,
blockaded the town, and waited for the slow operation of a siege, hoping
thus to be able to take the capital and the person of the sovereign
without bloodshed.

Ferdinand had brought such trouble upon the country, that he was now
almost as unpopular with the Catholics as with the Protestants, and all
his appeals to them for aid were of but little avail. The sudden
approach of Count Thurn had amazed and discomfited him, and he knew not
in what direction to look for aid. Cooped up in his capital, he could
hold no communication with foreign powers, and his own subjects
manifested no disposition to come to his rescue. The evidences of
popular discontent, even in the city, were every hour becoming more
manifest, and the unhappy sovereign was in hourly expectation of an
insurrection in the streets.

The surrender of Vienna involved the loss of Austria. With the loss of
Austria vanished all hopes of the imperial crown. Bohemia, Austria, and
the German scepter gone, Hungary would soon follow; and then, his own
Styrian territories, sustained and aided by their successful neighbors,
would speedily discard his sway. Ferdinand saw it all clearly, and was
in an agony of despair. He has confided to his confessor the emotions
which, in those terrible hours, agitated his soul. It is affecting to
read the declaration, indicative as it is that the most cruel and
perfidious man may be sincere and even conscientious in his cruelty and
crime. To his Jesuitical confessor, Bartholomew Valerius, he said,

"I have reflected on the dangers which threaten me and my family, both
at home and abroad. With an enemy in the suburbs, sensible that the
Protestants are plotting my ruin, I implore that help from God which I
can not expect from man. I had recourse to my Saviour, and said, 'Lord
Jesus Christ, Thou Redeemer of mankind, Thou to whom all hearts are
opened, Thou knowest that I seek Thy honor, not my own. If it be Thy
will, that, in this extremity, I should be overcome by thy enemies, and
be made the sport and contempt of the world, I will drink of the bitter
cup. Thy will be done.' I had hardly spoken these wor