and conferring upon the Roman Catholics
wealth and station. He had a powerful and triumphant standing army at
his control, under the energetic and bigoted Wallenstein, ready and able
to enforce his ordinances. No Protestant prince dared to make any show
of resistance. All the church property was torn from the Protestants,
and this vast sum, together with the confiscated territories of those
Protestant princes or nobles who had ventured to resist the emperor,
placed at his disposal a large fund from which to reward his followers.
The emperor kept, however, a large portion of the spoils in his own
hands for the enriching of his own family.

This state of things soon alarmed even the Catholics. The emperor was
growing too powerful, and his power was bearing profusely its natural
fruit of pride and arrogance. The army was insolent, trampling alike
upon friend and foe. As there was no longer any war, the army had become
merely the sword of the emperor to maintain his despotism. Wallenstein
had become so essential to the emperor, and possessed such power at the
head of the army, that he assumed all the air and state of a sovereign,
and insulted the highest nobles and the most powerful bishops by his
assumptions of superiority. The electors of the empire perceiving that
the emperor was centralizing power in his own hands, and that they would
soon become merely provincial governors, compelled to obey his laws and
subject to his appointment and removal, began to whisper to each other
their alarm.

The Duke of Bavaria was one of the most powerful princes of the German
empire. He had been the rival of Count Wallenstein, and was now
exceedingly annoyed by the arrogance of this haughty military chief.
Wallenstein was the emperor's right arm of strength. Inflamed by as
intense an ambition as ever burned in a human bosom, every thought and
energy was devoted to self-aggrandizement. He had been educated a
Protestant, but abandoned those views for the Catholic faith which
opened a more alluring field to ambition. Sacrificing the passions of
youth he married a widow, infirm and of advanced age, but of great
wealth. The death of his wrinkled bride soon left him the vast property
without incumbrance. He then entered into a matrimonial alliance which
favored his political prospects, marrying Isabella, the daughter of
Count Harruch, who was one of the emperor's greatest favorites.

When Ferdinand's fortunes were at a low ebb, and he knew