the restoration of their confiscated property. The Elector
of Saxony retaliated upon the Catholics the cruel wrongs which they had
inflicted upon the Protestants. Their castles were plundered, their
nobles driven into exile, and the conquerors loaded themselves with the
spoils of the vanquished.

But Ferdinand, as firm and inexorable in adversity as in prosperity,
bowed not before disaster. He roused the Catholics to a sense of their
danger, organized new coalitions, raised new armies. Tilly, with
recruited forces, was urged on to arrest the march of the conqueror.
Burning under the sense of shame for his defeat at Leipsic, he placed
himself at the head of his veterans, fell, struck by a musket-ball, and
died, after a few days of intense suffering, at the age of
seventy-three. The vast Austrian empire, composed of so many
heterogeneous States, bound together only by the iron energy of
Ferdinand, seemed now upon the eve of its dissolution. The Protestants,
who composed in most of the States a majority, were cordially rallying
beneath the banners of Gustavus. They had been in a state of despair.
They now rose in exalted hope. Many of the minor princes who had been
nominally Catholics, but whose Christian creeds were merely political
dogmas, threw themselves into the arms of Gustavus. Even the Elector of
Bavaria was so helpless in his isolation, that, champion as he had been
of the Catholic party, there seemed to be no salvation for him but in
abandoning the cause of Ferdinand. Gustavus was now, with a victorious
army, in the heart of Germany. He was in possession of the whole western
country from the Baltic to the frontiers of France, and apparently a
majority of the population were in sympathy with him.

Ferdinand at first resolved, in this dire extremity, to assume himself
the command of his armies, and in person to enter the field. This was
heroic madness, and his friends soon convinced him of the folly of one
so inexperienced in the arts of war undertaking to cope with Gustavus
Adolphus, now the most experienced and renowned captain in Europe. He
then thought of appointing his son, the Archduke Ferdinand,
commander-in-chief. But Ferdinand was but twenty-three years of age, and
though a young man of decided abilities, was by no means able to
encounter on the field the skill and heroism of the Swedish warrior. In
this extremity, Ferdinand was compelled to turn his eyes to his
discarded general Wallenstein.

This ext