of a truce, but if possible to prevent it. It was
obviously necessary to make the terms acceptable to the Swedes, who had
the advantage, and had more to hope than to fear from the continuance of
the war. They were the conquerors; and yet the Emperor presumed to
dictate to them. In the first transports of their indignation, the
Swedish ambassadors were on the point of leaving the congress, and the
French were obliged to have recourse to threats in order to detain them.

The good intentions of the Elector of Bavaria, to include the Emperor in
the benefit of the truce, having been thus rendered unavailing, he felt
himself justified in providing for his own safety. However hard were
the conditions on which the truce was to be purchased, he did not
hesitate to accept it on any terms. He agreed to the Swedes extending
their quarters in Suabia and Franconia, and to his own being restricted
to Bavaria and the Palatinate. The conquests which he had made in
Suabia were ceded to the allies, who, on their part, restored to him
what they had taken from Bavaria. Cologne and Hesse Cassel were also
included in the truce. After the conclusion of this treaty, upon the
14th March, 1647, the French and Swedes left Bavaria, and in order not
to interfere with each other, took up different quarters; the former in
Wuertemberg, the latter in Upper Suabia, in the neighbourhood of the
Lake of Constance. On the extreme north of this lake, and on the most
southern frontier of Suabia, the Austrian town of Bregentz, by its steep
and narrow passes, seemed to defy attack; and in this persuasion, the
whole peasantry of the surrounding villages had with their property
taken refuge in this natural fortress. The rich booty, which the store
of provisions it contained, gave reason to expect, and the advantage of
possessing a pass into the Tyrol, Switzerland and Italy, induced the
Swedish general to venture an attack upon this supposed impregnable post
and town, in which he succeeded. Meantime, Turenne, according to
agreement, marched into Wuertemberg, where he forced the Landgrave of
Darmstadt and the Elector of Mentz to imitate the example of Bavaria,
and to embrace the neutrality.

And now, at last, France seemed to have attained the great object of its
policy, that of depriving the Emperor of the support of the League, and
of his Protestant allies, and of dictating to him, sword in hand, the
conditions of peace. Of all his once formidable power, an army,