since it could scarcely be expected that they would at once be prepared to listen to the voice of a traitor and serve against their legitimate sovereign.  Wallenstein, therefore, must raise it publicly and in the name of the Emperor, and be placed at its head, with unlimited authority, by the Emperor himself.  But how could this be accomplished otherwise than by his being appointed to the command of the army and intrusted with full powers to conduct the war?  Yet neither his pride nor his interest permitted him to sue in person for this post and as a suppliant to accept from the favor of the Emperor a limited power, when an unlimited authority might be extorted from his fears.  In order to make himself the master of the terms on which he would resume the command of the army, his course was to wait until the post should be forced upon him.  This was the advice he received from Arnheim, and this the end for which he labored with profound policy and restless activity.

Convinced that extreme necessity would alone conquer the Emperor’s irresolution and render powerless the opposition of his bitter enemies, Bavaria and Spain, he henceforth occupied himself in promoting the success of the enemy and in increasing the embarrassments of his master.  It was apparently by his instigation and advice that the Saxons, when on the route to Lusatia and Silesia, had turned their march toward Bohemia and overrun that defenceless kingdom, where their rapid conquests were partly the result of his measures.  By the fears which he affected to entertain he paralyzed every effort at resistance; and his precipitate retreat caused the delivery of the capital to the enemy.  At a conference with the Saxon general, which was held at Kaunitz under the pretext of negotiating for a peace, the seal was put to the conspiracy, and the conquest of Bohemia was the first fruits of this mutual understanding.  While Wallenstein was thus personally endeavoring to heighten the perplexities of Austria, and while the rapid movements of the Swedes upon the Rhine effectually promoted his designs, his friends and bribed adherents in Vienna uttered loud complaints of the public calamities and represented the dismissal of the general as the sole cause of all these misfortunes.  “Had Wallenstein commanded, matters would never have come to this,” exclaimed a thousand voices; while their opinions found supporters, even in the Emperor’s privy council.

Their repeated remonstrances were not needed to convince the embarrassed Emperor of his general’s merits and of his own error.  His dependence on Bavaria and the League had soon become insupportable; but hitherto this dependence permitted him not to show his distrust, or irritate the Elector by the recall of Wallenstein.  But now when his necessities grew every day more pressing, and the weakness of Bavaria more apparent, he could no longer hesitate to listen to friends of the duke, and to consider their overtures for his restoration to command.  The immense riches