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cause of the city's ruin.

The city of Nuremberg opened their arms to receive the assistance
proffered by the Swedes, and their purses to defend their town
and common cause; and this was the saving them absolutely from
destruction. The rich burghers and magistrates kept open houses, where
the officers of the army were always welcome; and the council of the
city took such care of the poor that there was no complaining nor
disorders in the whole city. There is no doubt but it cost the city
a great deal of money; but I never saw a public charge borne with so
much cheerfulness, nor managed with so much prudence and conduct in my
life. The city fed above 50,000 mouths every day, including their own
poor, besides themselves; and yet when the king had lain thus three
months, and finding his armies longer in coming up than he expected,
asked the burgrave how their magazines held out, he answered, they
desired his Majesty not to hasten things for them, for they could
maintain themselves and him twelve months longer if there was
occasion. This plenty kept both the army and city in good health, as
well as in good heart; whereas nothing was to be had of us but blows,
for we fetched nothing from without our works, nor had no business
without the line but to interrupt the enemy.

The manner of the king's encampment deserves a particular chapter.
He was a complete surveyor and a master in fortification, not to be
outdone by anybody. He had posted his army in the suburbs of the town,
and drawn lines round the whole circumference, so that he begirt
the whole city with his army. His works were large, the ditch deep,
flanked with innumerable bastions, ravelins, horn-works, forts,
redoubts, batteries, and palisadoes, the incessant work of 8000 men
for about fourteen days; besides that, the king was adding something
or other to it every day, and the very posture of his camp was
enough to tell a bigger army than Wallenstein's that he was not to be
assaulted in his trenches.

The king's design appeared chiefly to be the preservation of the
city; but that was not all. He had three armies acting abroad in
three several places. Gustavus Horn was on the Moselle, the chancellor
Oxenstiern about Mentz, Cologne, and the Rhine, Duke William and
Duke Bernhard, together with General Baner, in Bavaria. And though he
designed they should all join him, and had wrote to them all to that
purpose, yet he did not hasten them, knowing that while he kept